Farm Bureau adopts a new Notarization Policy

For years, the Cook County Farm Bureau has provided free courtesy notarization services for Cook County Farm Bureau members. The Board of Directors has changed the notarization policy in lieu of amendments that were made to the Illinois Notary Public Act. Effective June 1, 2009, the organization will do limited notarization for members.

The Cook County Farm Bureau will continue to provide the free courtesy of notarizing documents for members with one exception. Due to new Illinois restrictions, additional paper work, and fees that are now required to be forwarded to the Cook County Recorder, we will not be notarizing documents related to residential real estate transactions.

In addition, if the notary in the Cook County Farm Bureau office does not know the member requesting the service, the person must provide a state or federally issued identification which includes a photograph and signature of the individual. We are also forced, based on the amendments of the Illinois Notary Public Act, to ask what each notarized documents purpose is to verify that we are complying with these policies and to limit the liability exposure to the organization.

For members requiring a residential real estate transaction notarization, Cook County Farm Bureau is working on compiling a list of area banks, attorneys and title companies that can provide the notarization documents required for the members.

We appreciate the member’s use of this service and we hope that this does not provide a major inconvenience for those members.