MBANow: William Kooper on MBA Remote Online Notarization Update
The Mortgage Bankers Association released a new MBANow video featuring MBA Vice President of State Government Affairs and Industry Relations William Kooper, who provides an update on an MBA initiative to enact state laws permitting remote online notarization.
The video can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7w17afGoYc&feature=em-uploademail.
MBA and the American Land Title Association have collaborated to prepare model legislation that would provide the framework for any state to adopt an remote online notarization process. This model legislation was developed with input from an ad-hoc task force of MBA and ALTA members and was also exposed for comment to MBA’s Legal Issues and Regulatory Compliance Committee, MBA’s State Legislative and Regulatory Committee and also ALTA committees. Additionally, key policy makers and other independent groups provided input. Both MBA and ALTA are working with their member companies and state and local association partners to advocate for the provisions of this model.
Kooper said so far this year, the campaign has gone “very well.” Four states–Tennessee, Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana-enacted laws this year that follow the contours of the MBA-ALTA model; additionally, Texas last week adopted final rules that embraces key elements of the MBA-ALTA approach. Nearly a dozen other states have begun the process.
Additionally, Kooper noted the Uniform Law Commission, a non-partisan non-profit group of volunteer experts, wrote a model bill to create uniformity for notarial acts called ULONA–the Uniform Law on Notarial Act, which was revised years later and became RULONA. This year, ULC updated RULONA to provide language to help states adopt Remote Online Notarization. That language was approved earlier this summer and in key areas this is similar to the approach taken in the MBA-ALTA model.
“We think all of these developments plus RON laws in the original four states give us great momentum,” Kooper said. “We are engaged in a two-part strategy for 2019: We go back to states that introduced but did not pass RON bills this year, but now we’ll have that ULC language; and we will also focus on states that have already implemented RULONA, and ask them to consider the new ULC piece.”
For more information, visit the MBA RON Resource Center (https://www.mba.org/audience/state-legislative-and-regulatory-resource-center/remote-online-notarization).
Other videos in the MBANow series can be viewed at the MBANow website: https://www.mba.org/get-involved/stay-connected/mba-now.
