What Standard 5.10 Says
There is a moment in a Notary Signing Agent's career that no certification course fully prepares you for. It is not a complicated notarial certificate or a 200 page package. It is a sentence. A casual comment from a signer that directly contradicts what the closing documents say, spoken like it is nothing, in the middle of an ordinary appointment.
Maybe the loan application says primary residence and the signer mentions their tenants. Maybe someone else in the room keeps answering the borrower's questions for them. Maybe the signer laughs and says the down payment is not really coming from me.
Whatever form it takes, you are now a notary who knows something. And the NSA Code of Conduct has a specific standard telling you exactly what to do with that knowledge.
Standard 5.10 sits under Guiding Principle 5 of the Notary Signing Agent Code of Conduct, the principle dedicated to illegal and suspicious activity. In plain language, the standard says this: if a Notary Signing Agent knows about or witnesses any potential or actual misrepresentation or falsehood connected to a transaction, the NSA must report it immediately to the contracting company.
The standard is short, but two words inside it do all the work.
Immediately means the report happens the moment you know. Not when the signing wraps up, not when you drop the package, not the next business day. The transaction is moving toward funding in real time, and the people who need to evaluate what you heard need to hear it while decisions can still be made.
Potential means you do not need proof. You are not required to establish that fraud is occurring, and you are not expected to. A reasonable basis to believe that something represented in the transaction may be false is enough to trigger the duty. The standard deliberately sets the bar at suspicion, because by the time a notary has certainty, the damage is usually done.
What Misrepresentation Actually Looks Like
Misrepresentation at a signing table almost never announces itself. It arrives as small talk, and recognizing it is a skill.
Occupancy contradictions. The documents describe an owner-occupied primary residence, and the conversation describes something else: a rental, an investment, a property for a relative. Occupancy fraud is one of the most common forms of mortgage misrepresentation because borrowers see it as harmless, and the signing appointment is often where the truth slips out.
Coaching and control. A person who is not the borrower dominates the appointment, answers questions directed at the signer, corrects their responses, or instructs them on what to say. Sometimes it is an overbearing relative. Sometimes it is something worse, and it overlaps with the awareness and willingness concerns covered elsewhere in Guiding Principle 5.
Straw buyer comments. The signer suggests that someone else is the real purchaser, that they are just signing, or that the property will really belong to a person who appears nowhere in the documents.
Side agreements. Any reference to an arrangement between buyer, seller, or a third party that is not reflected in the closing package: undisclosed payments, rent-back deals nobody documented, or funds changing hands outside of closing.
Income and employment contradictions. Comments that conflict with what the borrower apparently told the lender: a job they no longer have, income that was rounded up, a business that does not quite exist.
None of these guarantees fraud is happening. They do not have to. Under Standard 5.10, the contradiction itself is reportable.
The Mistake in Both Directions
When notaries mishandle this moment, it usually goes one of two ways.
The first mistake is silence. The notary tells themselves it is not their business, that they are only there to witness signatures, that the lender surely knows. Silence feels neutral, but it is not. Your commission is on the line in that transaction. Your journal records it. Your seal authenticates it. If the deal later unravels into a fraud investigation, the notary who heard the red flag and said nothing has placed themselves inside the problem instead of outside it.
The second mistake is playing investigator. The notary starts cross-examining the signer, challenging their answers, or announcing that something appears fraudulent. This is not your role, and it is not a safe one. You do not have the full loan file. You do not know what the lender approved. You are alone in someone's home, and confronting a person about suspected fraud can escalate a situation you cannot control. Accusing a signer based on a suspicion can also be flat wrong, and wrong in a way that damages the transaction and your reputation.
Standard 5.10 hands you the professional middle path: do not ignore it, do not investigate it, report it.
The Protocol, Step by Step
When a comment at the table contradicts the documents in front of you, follow this sequence.
First, stay calm and neutral. Your face and your tone should give away nothing. The appointment continues normally until you decide otherwise.
Second, create a natural pause. "Give me one moment, I need to verify something on this file" is honest, ordinary, and raises no alarm.
Third, contact your contracting company immediately, ideally from outside the room. Report facts, not theories: what was said, who said it, and which document it contradicts. Let them decide what happens next.
Fourth, follow their instructions exactly. They may tell you to proceed, to pause, or to end the appointment. They have context you do not, including the lender's requirements and the title company's position.
Fifth, document the facts in your journal. Record what you observed and reported, without conclusions or accusations. If questions ever come later, that entry is your professional protection.
Why Reporting Builds Your Business
Here is the part most training courses never mention: the notaries who report are the notaries who get hired again.
From the signing service side of the table, a notary who calls the moment something feels wrong is not a problem. That notary just protected the client, the lender, the transaction, and the service's reputation, all with one phone call. Those are the professionals who get trusted with the complex files, the high-value closings, and the clients who cannot afford a single mistake.
A closing that funds on a misrepresentation is not a success, it is a liability with a delay. The professionals who understand that are the ones this industry keeps.
The Bottom Line
You will probably need Standard 5.10 only a handful of times in your entire career. But on the day you need it, you will not have time to figure out your response from scratch. Decide now: you are not the investigator, you are not the judge, and you are never the accomplice. You are the professional who saw something, stepped away, and made the call.
That is what your seal promises. Keep the promise.
Source: Notary Signing Agent Code of Conduct, Version 3.0, published by the Signing Professionals Workgroup (signingprofessionalsworkgroup.org). This article is part of the NSA Code of Conduct Series, a weekly plain-language breakdown of the standards that define the Notary Signing Agent profession. This series is independent educational content and is not endorsed by or affiliated with the SPW.
