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In the US most notaries will not allow you to sign official documents with a fountain pen- it seems to be part of the training, and many realtors and attorneys
by olympus 9y ago
In the US most notaries will not allow you to sign official documents with a fountain pen- it seems to be part of the training, and many realtors and attorneys are notaries for convenience. As great as they are to write with, many FP inks cannot withstand tampering, so they don't allow any FP inks because it's hard to track which of the thousands of brand/color combos are safe. A cheapo ballpoint is better for official documents- although in this era I'd trust a cryptographic signature more than a handwritten one.
- bayindirh 9y agoI have a bottle of cellulose reactive fountain pen ink for such purposes. Also, there are mass produced tamper-proof inks. So, in fact it's possible to sign documents with an FP. On the other side of the spectrum is "washable" blues which are waiting to disappear in a small drop of water.
- jl6 9y agoI think the problem is that a notary might have trouble being convinced that your fountain pen ink is what you say it is.
- bayindirh 9y agoProbably yes. For these stuff I always carry a Uniball elite with blue-black ink (I'm a blue-black guy), and for other documents -like office and other stuff- I use the reactive ink. Uniball's super ink is ridiculously tamper-proof, contrary to its cheesy name.
- Digory 9y agoMost? That’s a new one to me, and I regularly use notaries, though not in the context of real estate. I suppose in real estate transactions, your bank might insist on you using their pen, as it doesn’t want you to sign a note in disappearing ink. But the “notary” shouldn’t care how you sign most documents, once you prove you are the person signing.
- olympus 9y agoThey won't force you to use a particular pen, but they must take reasonable precautions that you are using permanent ink. Notaries must protect their seal, and don't want you to sign as Joe Blow, get the seal, then wash the signature off at home and re-sign as Donald Trump. Washing a signature is trivial with many FP inks, so most notaries don't want you to use them- it's too much trouble to verify which inks are safe, and much easier to ask you to use a ballpoint. Those that do allow it are risking losing their license (admittedly a small risk) if they get caught up in fraudulent signatures. Notaries that allow FP inks are either just accepting the risk because they don't want to be a dick or they are not aware that by using FP ink you might as well be signing in pencil.