Request By:
Mrs. Nina Mooney
Clerk Bullitt County Court
Courthouse
Shepherdsville, Kentucky 40165
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Elizabeth E. Blackford, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked whether it is permissable for your deputy clerks to notarize a bill of sale in the following fashion: Nina Mooney, Bullitt County Clerk, by: (D.C.). Assuming that the bill of sale you mention is the one required by law as a prerequisite to the transfer of motor vehicles, such notarization is permissable.
KRS 186.200 sets forth the required contents of a bill of sale and states that it must be subscribed and sworn to before any officer authorized to administer an oath. The county clerk is given the power to administer oaths by KRS 28.040. KRS 61.035 provides in part as follows:
"Deputy may act for ministerial officer. - Any duty enjoined by law . . . upon a ministerial officer and any act permitted to be done by him, may be performed by his lawful deputy. "
Pursuant to this section a deputy clerk has the power to administer an oath.
Asher v. Sizemore, Ky., 261 S.W.2d 665 (1953). As both the clerk and the deputy clerk have the power to administer an oath, it makes no difference whether the deputy clerk signs only his name or whether he signs: (county clerk) , by (deputy clerk) . See
Asher v. Sizemore, supra.
Since the deputy clerk's power and duty to notarize bills of sale arises directly from his power to administer an oath, the language of Asher, supra is directly applicable to oath, the language of Asher, supra such notarizations. Therefore it is permissable for a deputy clerk to notarize a bill of sale in either of the following forms:
(1) , deputy clerk or
(2) Nina Mooney, Bullitt County Clerk, by: (deputy clerk) .