§ 121.010.Form of Certificate for Proof by Witness

The certificate that records what the witness swore, and it tracks the proof section clause by clause.

Where execution is proved by a witness, the certificate of the officer must be substantially as follows — again a model rather than a script.

It opens with the state and county, then the officer’s appearance line naming "the name and character of the officer".

The witness is identified next: "known to me (or proved to me on the oath of ____)", which reproduces the two identification routes the proof section allows and omits the identification-document route the acknowledgment form carries.

The witness is then described by role — "the person whose name is subscribed as a witness to the foregoing instrument" — rather than as the person who executed it, which is the difference between proof and acknowledgment.

The substance follows: "after being duly sworn by me stated on oath that he saw ____, the grantor or person who executed the foregoing instrument, subscribe the same", with the alternative in parentheses that the signer "acknowledged in his presence that he had executed the same".

Both limbs of the statutory oath appear, and the form ends with the second: "that he had signed the same as a witness at the request of the grantor".

The certificate closes with the seal and date, in the same words the acknowledgment form uses.

Reading the form is the quickest way to understand the proof procedure, because it states in order everything the officer must establish.