ALTA, Nevada Land Title Association Comment on Nevada’s RON Legislation

November 6, 2018

ALTA and the Nevada Land Title Association, along with the Mortgage Bankers Association submitted joint comments to the Nevada Secretary of State on its proposed regulations to implement remote online notary (RON) legislation that passed in 2017.

The groups provided a draft of the standard being developed by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) Remote Online Notarization Development Working Group. The standards are designed to promote legal consistency among states enabling RON and protect consumers. Along with the MISMO standards, the comments also encourage the Secretary of State to embrace the following principles:

  • The regulations should recognize consumers have a choice in whether to use remote online notarization or not;
  • The regulations should appropriately protect consumer data privacy and security;
  • The regulations should take into account the personal nature of any information contained in the audio-video recording and require disclosure of what is stored and what becomes public record to the consumer as a way of helping them manage their own data privacy;
  • The regulations should be technology neutral. More specifically, the technology requirements should not be so specific as to favor one vendor over another;
  • The regulations should not be so prescriptive that they impede the evolution of technology development that protects consumer information and security practices;
  • The regulations must have provisions requiring identity verification while avoiding prescriptive language that might limit the introduction of newer solutions at a future date;
  • For purposes of determining a valid notarial act, the regulations should only require a limited digital recording that captures solely the notarial act in audio and video;
  • The regulations must provide that acknowledgments that are performed online can be readily identified and distinguished from "in person" acknowledgments;
  • The regulations should incorporate by reference the standards developed by MISMO;
  • The regulations should be consistent with the Uniform Law Commission's Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (RULONA), which was recently amended to include language that enables the use of RON and will be finalized in the coming months; and
  • To the maximum extent possible, the regulations should conform to the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) and the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act (URPERA).

For more information about RON, contact Elizabeth Blosser at [email protected].


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].