Amendment to 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice

 

OCA CIRCULAR NO. 197-2025

TO:                  ALL EXECUTIVE JUDGES OF MULTI-SALA

REGIONAL TRIAL COURTS OR JUDGES OF SINGLESALA REGIONAL TRIAL COURTS

SUBJECT:     RESOLUTION DATED MARCH 04, 2025 OF THE COURT EN BANC IN A.M. NO. 02-8-13-SC (RE: 2004 RULES ON NOTARIAL PRACTICE)

For the information, guidance, and strict observance of all concerned, quoted below and appended hereto as Annex "A" is the Resolution dated March 04, 2025 of the Court en banc in A.M. No. 02-8-13-SC, which RESOLVED to AMEND the following provisions of the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice, thus:

RULE III

COMMISSIONING OF NOTARY PUBLIC

SEC. 2. Form of the Petition and Supporting Documents. — Every petition for a notarial commission shall in writing, verified, and shall include the following:

a.  a statement containing the petitioner's personal qualifications, including the petitioner's date of birth, residence, telephone and/or mobile number, valid and professional email address of record, professional tax receipt, roll of attorney's number, Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) membership number, Mandatory Continuing Legal Education compliance number, and Unified Legal Aid Service compliance number;

b.  certification of good moral character of the petitioner by at least two (2) executive officers of the local chapter of the IBP where he is applying for commission;

c.       Proof of payment for the filing of the petition as required by these Rules; and

d.  Three (3) unretouched passport-size color photographs with light background taken within thirty (30) days of the application. The petitioner shall sign his name at the bottom part of the photographs.

SEC. 15. Recordal of email address of record of notary_ public. — Each notary public with a valid commission must notify his or her executive judge of their valid and professional email address of record prior to or together with their first compliance with the requirement to submit digitized duplicate originals in Section 201), Rule VI.

An email address is deemed valid when it is in the [local-part]@[domain] syntax and is capable of receiving emails from other senders, especially those outside the address's own domain. To preserve the confidentiality, privacy, and security of communications, the use by notaries public of personal, nonprofessional email accounts as their email address of record is prohibited.

Each notary public must promptly notify his or her executive judge of any changes to his or her email address of record. The failure to promptly notify the executive judge shall be a ground for denial of the application for renewal of commission.

RULE V FEES OF NOTARY PUBLIC

SEC. 3. Prohibited fees. — No fee or compensation of any kind, except those expressly prescribed and allowed herein, shall be collected or received for any notarial service.

No fee or charge shall be collected or received by a notary public for the digitization of any instrument or document or their transmittal, storage, disposal, or other forms of processing or for any costs associated with such digitization and processing.

RULE VI NOTARIAL REGISTER

SEC. 2. Entries in the Notarial Register. - …

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(d) When the instrument or document is a contract, the notary public shall keep an original copy thereof as part of the records and enter in said records a brief description of the substance thereof and shall give to each entry a consecutive number, beginning with number one in each calendar year. The notary public shall retain an exact copy of the instrument or document in an electronic file format prescribed by this Rules, which shall serve as the duplicate original copy for the clerk of court.

The duplicate original copy for the clerk of court shall be in a PDF file and must be a complete and exact reproduction of the original instrument or document in paper. The contents must be completely legible. The reproduction shall, as far as practicable, reproduce all colors and marks on all pages as appearing in the original instrument or document in paper. The transmittal of a duplicate original copy which does not comply with these requisites shall be a punishable act pursuant to Section 1, Rule XII.

Each duplicate original copy shall be contained in its own PDF file. No duplicate original copy shall be split or divided across multiple PDF files. The file name of the PDF file must contain the short form of the document or instrument's title or designation, the date the notarial act was performed, and, if necessary to uniquely identify each file, short forms of the names of the parties.

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(h) A certified copy of each month's entries and a duplicate original copy in the electronic file format prescribed in Section 2(d) of this Rule of any instrument acknowledged before the notary public shall, within the first ten (10) days of the month following, be forwarded to the clerk of court and shall be under the responsibility of such officer. If there is no entry to certify for the month, the notary public shall forward a statement to this effect in lieu of certified copies herein required.

The duplicate original copies, if any, shall be electronically transmitted to the clerk of court using only the notary public's email address of record further to Section 15, Rule III. The subject of the transmittal email shall state the name of the notary public and the month and year of the compliance in the format:

Subject: Notary Report of [Name of Notary Public] for

[Month and Year]

The body of the transmittal shall contain the name of the notary public, the month and year of compliance, a statement on the date and mode by which the certified copy of the covered month's entries was transmitted to the clerk of court, number of duplicate originals transmitted, and a list of the designations or titles of the duplicate original copies in the following format:

Notary public: [Name of notary public]

Compliance period: [Month and year]

Submission of notarial report: [state particulars on the date and mode of transmittal to the clerk of court

Number of documents or instruments: [numberl

Inventory: [numbered list of all duplicate original copies, identified by their designations or titles, in short format]

All PDF files must be transmitted as direct attachments to the transmittal email and not as external links to cloud storage, file-sharing sites, or similar sites. PDF files must not be contained in archive files, such as ZIP (.zip) or RAR (.rar). and must not require additional extraction or conversion into PDF.

In case the total file size of the files exceeds the maximum size allowed for attachments by the email service provider being used by the one filing, the notary public shall transmit the duplicate original copies in several batches, but each email must be clearly marked by indicating in the subject the batch number of the email and the total batches of emails sent.

Example:

Subject: Notarial Report of [Name of Notary Public] for [Month and Year] (batch 1 of 3)

Subject: Notarial Report of [Name of Notary Public] for [Month and Year] (batch 2 of 3)

Subject: Notarial Report of [Name of Notary Public] for

[Month and Year] (batch 3 of 3)

SEC. 7. Mandatory Transmittal of Duplicate Original Copy in Electronic Format to Signatories. — A notary public shall, at no additional cost, transmit through email or other electronic file-sharing mechanism upon mutual agreement, a copy in electronic format, as prescribed in Section 2(d) of this Rule, to each signatory of a document or instrument, within five (5) days from the completion of the notarial act or from the deadline to transmit the duplicate original copy to the clerk of court. A signatory may waive the transmittal of the duplicate original copy in electronic format to them, which shall have the effect of a waiver of any objections to the completeness of the reproduction.

If a signatory finds that there are material discrepancies affecting the rights of any party between the document or instrument in their possession and the duplicate original in electronic format transmitted to them, they must promptly notify the notary public, in writing, of such material discrepancies and request the rectification of the duplicate original copy.

The failure to rectify material discrepancies or to respond to a signatory's notice thereof shall be a ground for nonrenewal of a notarial commission and temporary disqualification from being commissioned as a notary public.

The transmittal to a clerk of court of an unrectified duplicate original or one which the notary public has been notified of material discrepancies shall be a ground for revocation of the notarial commission and permanent disqualification from being commissioner as a notary public.