The purpose of this Bulletin is to bring agents up to date on approved statutory and regulatory RON procedures in Colorado and FNTI’s underwriting position relative to RON transactions.
The onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 led to unprecedented changes in the way that title companies conduct real estate closings. Among those changes was the rapid adoption in many states of the use of RON as an approved method for parties to appear before a notary public. On March 27, 2020, Governor Polis issued Executive Order D2020-019, temporarily suspending the personal appearance requirement before a notary officer and authorizing the Secretary of State to issue emergency rules for notarization via audio-video communication. The Secretary of State subsequently issued temporary rules limiting notarization via audio-video communication to notaries and parties physically located in Colorado and not specifying approved third-party platforms with trusted security protocols for conducting audio-visual communications.
On June 26, 2020, Governor Polis signed into law Senate Bill 20-096, codifying more secure methods for performing notarial acts using audio-video communication and bringing Colorado more into line with the practices of other states that had approved RON procedures. Following an “interim period” set forth in the Bill, the new RON statutes became effective December 31, 2020. The statutes can be found at C.R.S. 24-21-502 and C.R.S. 24-21-514.5. In conjunction with the passage of SB 20-096, on December 1, 2020, the Secretary of State issued notice of adoption of new Administrative Rule 5 regarding approved RON procedures, also effective on December 31.
Colorado notaries must be authorized by the Secretary of State to perform RON and are now allowed to do RON for parties located outside of Colorado. RON for parties located outside of the US is more restricted, the most significant for our purposes being that it must be related to property located within the US. In all cases the RON notary must be physically located in Colorado. The RON transaction must be recorded and the RON notary must store an electronic record of the RON transaction for a period of ten years. The parties appearing by RON must explicitly consent to the use
