Notarizing the Operating Agreement

by Cory
(AZ)

Does the Operating Agreement need to be notarized? If not, how do you know that the person who prepared it did not just change it and put the signature page at the end?

Answer

On long contracts (which an Operating Agreement essentially is--a contract among members of the limited liability company), it is common to have a space on the bottom of each page for the parties' to initial.

That way, you can avoid concern over pages being inserted in the middle, with the signature page remaining the same. If a page were inserted, the initials would be missing.

By the way, notarization wouldn't help in that situation, as a party could simply replace pages after the signature page was notarized.

I am not aware of any state law which requires Operating Agreements to be notarized in order to be enforceable among the parties.