The Office of Notary Public in Louisiana – General Powers

The Office of Notary Public in Louisiana – General Powers

RS. 35:2. General powers; administration of certain oaths in any parish. A.(1) Notaries public have power within their several parishes:

(a) To make inventories, appraisements, and partitions;

(b) To receive wills, make protests, matrimonial contracts, conveyances, and generally; all contracts and instruments of writing;

c) To hold family meetings and meetings of creditors;

(d) To receive acknowledgements of instruments under private signature;

(e) To make affidavits of correction;

(f) To affix the seals upon the effects of deceased persons, and to raise the same.

(2) All acts executed by a notary public, in conformity with the provisions of Civil Code Art. 1833, shall be authentic acts.

(3) Notwithstanding any provision in the law to the contrary, a notary public shall have power, within the parish or parishes in which he is authorized, to exercise all of the functions of a notary public and to receive wills in which he is named as administrator, executor, trustee, attorney for the administrator, attorney for the executor, attorney for the trustee, attorney for a legatee, attorney for an heir, or attorney for the estate.

B. However, each notary public of this state shall have authority to administer oaths in any parish of the state, to swear in persons who appear to give testimony at a deposition before a general reporter or free-lance reporter certified under the provisions of R.S. 37:2551 et seq., and to verify interrogatories and other plead­ings to be used in the courts of record of this state. Such oaths, and the certificates issued by such notaries shall be received in the courts of this state and shall have legal efficacy for purposes of the laws on perjury.

C. Every qualified notary public is authorized to certify true copies of any authentic act or any instrument under private signature hereafter or heretofore passed before him or acknowledged before him, and to make and certify copies, by any method, of any certificate, research, resolution, survey or other document annexed to the original of any authentic acts passed before him, and may certify such copies as true copies of the original document attached to the original passed before him.