THE EDUCATION OF BC NOTARIES
The Education of BC Notaries over 40 Years
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I
have been involved in student education for The Society of Notaries Public of BC since the early 1990s. I graduated and received my commission as a Notary in 1989, following 15 years as a senior conveyance assistant to Notaries and lawyers in Ontario and British Columbia. At the time I graduated, the Notary program was a series of chapters largely taken from the Real Estate licensing course at the time. It was administered by the then Real Estate Division of the University of British Columbia and was completely self-learned. Students were given written materials and a compendium of legislative Acts as study guides. Students read the chapters and completed and submitted assignments on each topic. Topics of study covered real property including registration principles, the Torrens System of property registration, residential and commercial tenancies, and mortgages.
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Marny Morin
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Other topics included torts, contracts, and agency as well as some add-on chapters on Powers of Attorney, Wills, and estate administration.
…in the early ‘90s, the Board of Directors of the day called for a review of the Notary training program by a third-party consultant. That resulted in a complete overhaul of the program. Each class was assigned UBC tutors from the Real Estate Division for questions. None of the teaching assistants were Notaries. At the end of the program, students were examined in accordance with the Regulations to the Notaries Act. At the time I graduated, a separate course had been added to the curriculum—a distance-learning course on conveyancing practice. Once the courses were satisfactorily completed, an appointed Board of Examiners administered six written examinations covering contracts, Wills and trusts, property, BC Notaries Association
Notarial procedure, statutes, and conveyancing practice. Practical training consisted of 2 days of advice in the days before graduation; the class members met each other for the first time. There was no mentoring requirement or other on-site work with a BC Notary Public. At the time, students “shopped” for a Seal—the right to practise in a defined geographical area. Only 321 “Seals” were available; all were allocated to specific municipalities . . . some were more desirable than others. In effect, a Notary student had to wait for a vacant Seal or negotiate a purchase arrangement for a Seal in a specific community. That sometimes created a bidding situation for Seals in choice locations. Shortly after that, in the early ‘90s, the Board of Directors of the day called for a review of the Notary training program by a thirdparty consultant. That resulted in a complete overhaul of the program. It was developed from the ground up in a more modern and focused format with eight Volume 30 Number 1 Spring 2021
