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Notary Refunds: When Is a Notarization Fee Refundable?

At Walk-In Notary, we take responsibility for the work we do. If we make a mistake while providing a notarization service, we will do our best to make it right. Where appropriate, that includes providing a refund.

Fortunately, mistakes on our end are rare. Our notaries are experienced professionals, and we have processes in place to ensure that documents are notarized properly.

However, there is an important distinction between an error made by the notary and an error in the document provided by the client. This distinction is at the heart of our notary refund policy.

When Is a Notarization Fee Refundable?

If Walk-In Notary makes an error in performing the notarization service you paid us to perform, please contact us. We will review what happened and, if the error was ours, take appropriate steps to correct it. Depending on the circumstances, that may include redoing the notarization at no charge and/or issuing a refund.

When Is a Notarization Fee Not Refundable?

Our role is to notarize the document presented to us. Walk-In Notary does not provide legal advice for clients. It is the client’s responsibility to ensure that the document itself is correct, complete, and suitable for its intended purpose.

For example, suppose you draft a document, bring it to one of our notary public offices, and ask us to notarize your signature. We notarize it correctly, but you later discover that you entered the wrong information, left something out, or need to change the wording. You may need to prepare a new document and have it notarized again, but that does not mean the original notarization was performed incorrectly.

The same applies if a third party later rejects a notarized document or tells you that it needs to be changed, reformatted, redrafted, or notarized differently because of requirements that were not communicated to us at the time of your visit.

A document being rejected does not necessarily mean that the notary made a mistake. Different organizations can have their own requirements, and it is important to confirm those requirements before having your document notarized.

In these situations, we have still performed the notarization service requested of us, and the notary fee is therefore not refundable.

Why We Have This Refund Policy

Consider a simple comparison. If you ask a printing company to print 100 copies of a document and later realize that your original document contained a typo, the printer would not normally be expected to refund the printing cost. The printer performed the service correctly using the material you provided.

Notarization works in much the same way.

Our notaries ensure that the notarial act itself is performed correctly. However, clients are responsible for knowing what document they need, ensuring that its contents are accurate, and confirming any special requirements imposed by the organization receiving it.

Before Having a Document Notarized

We strongly recommend reviewing your document carefully before visiting a notary public. If the notarized document is being submitted to a government agency, court, university, foreign authority, bank, or another organization, confirm their requirements beforehand.

If you have been given specific instructions about how the document must be signed, witnessed, certified, or notarized, please bring those instructions with you.

Our Notary Refund Policy in One Sentence

If we make the mistake, we take responsibility for it. If we correctly perform the notarization service requested but there is a problem with the document itself or the instructions provided to us, the service remains payable.

We believe this is the fairest approach for everyone, and we hope that explaining our refund policy clearly helps avoid misunderstandings.