This blog entry will contain links to information about various notary procedures.
Credible witness notary procedure
Credible Witnesses from A to Z
General notary public procedure
There are various types of notary acts which are common such as Jurats, Acknowledgments, Oaths, and Affidavits. Please click on the link of the notary act you are interested in.
Jail signing Procedures
Jail signings are not that different from other signings except for the fact that inmates typically do not have identification that is acceptable to notaries. The next difference is that the person who coordinates the jail signing and meets the notary at the jail is generally a relative, girlfriend, or attorney for the inmate, where most notary jobs are booked by the signer themselves. It is possible that inmates could be moved from jail to jail which is another issue. Please read out blog about jail signings.
Notarized Affidavit Procedure
An affidavit is a document like any other, and it is generally notarized using a Jurat which requires the signer to sign in the presence of the notary, and for the signer to swear under oath that the contents of the statement / document are true and correct and perhaps that they will abide by the terms in the agreement. Please read our entry about Notarized Affidavits.
Notary Witness Procedure
Notaries can act as witnesses in their capacity as individuals. Please see our blog entry entitled,”can a notary be a witness“. Notaries can notarize signatures of witnesses, and can also use credible witnesses to identify a signer in many states. In addition, there is such a thing as subscribing witnesses for proofs of execution and for signing by x.
Procedure for notary by mark
Please see our blog entry about signing by x
Procedure for Affidavit of Support
Please see our blog entry about Affidavits of Support. In short this is notarized like any other affidavit and uses a Jurat which requires the signer to sign in the presence of the notary and take an Oath regarding the truthfulness of the document and their willingness to abide by the terms stipulated in the document.
These companies are not necessarily new, but they have been commented on the most relatively recently. These companies were not on our list of signing companies before, but they came to our attention recently, so we are adding them now! The best winner of the pack is Transtar National Title. The notaries are raving about how fast they pay and how nice they are to work for.
Associates Title
Blue Sky Closings
DMN Business Solutions
Docs on the Fly
Financial Dimensions
Justice Title & Escrow
Lender Vend Settlement Services
Metro Inspections AZ
Moritz Title Company
Nationwide Signing Services
North Coast Settlement
Premier Title & Escrow
Ramey Ink
Signature Notaries, LLC
Signature Settlement Services
Top of the Line Signings
Transtar National Title
When can I use 2 Credible Witnesses?
You need to know your state’s notary rules to know IF you can use credible identifying witnesses to identify a signer. You also need to know the exact procedures for when you can use a credible witness and how. Some states allow only the use of 1 Credible Witness who must be known to the notary as well as the signer. Other states allow the use of 2 Credible Witnesses, while a handful allow the use of 1 Credible Witness OR 2 Credible Witnesses depending on whether or not the notary knows the Credible Identifying Witness or not!
Rules for Credible Witnesses
As a general rule, most states don’t want you to use Credible Witnesses unless you do not have access to a current government issued photo idenfication card / document. Some states require the Credible Witness to sign the journal (use the additional notes section for this siguature becuase the SIGNATURE area of the journal is for the document signer to sign). Some states require that the Credible Witness be identified by having a passport, drivers license, or some other acceptable form of identification. There is a lot that can go wrong with credible witnesses.
What if everybody lost their ID?
It has happened many times that the document signer lost their ID. Then, we called in a credible witness who hardly knew the signer, who also didn’t have any ID. In such a case, you can not notarize anything!
You can use 2 Credible Witnesses when….
If you are in California, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, or Tennessee, you can use 2 Credible Witnesses who know the signer — to identify the signer. The Credible Witnesses should be identified by the notary (rules might vary state by state) and should sign the notary journal (not all states require a journal). It is not a bad idea to record the printed name, phone number, address, and driver license / identification of the Credible Witness in your journal as well as their signature. If you look at your journal a year after the fact, you will not remember what that “scribble” (signature) was unless you document it — and there is very little room to document it.
You can use 1 Credible Witness if…
If you are an Arizona notary, California notary, Florida notary, or Georgia notary, Ohio notary, Pennsylvania notary (and perhaps other states which we don’t have materials to research from currently), you can use 1 Credible Witness to identify a signer providing that the Credible Identifying Witness knows the signer and knows the notary public as well.
Most notaries have no idea how to do a credible witness signings. This is a highly critical thing to know, since roughly 5% of signings require the use of credible witnesses. Please consult your state’s notary manual because you need to know your state’s exact rules and conditions for using Credible Witnesses. Our guide is just a general guide and contains very little state specific information.
You might also like:
Credible Witnesses from A to Z
Can a notary be a witness?
National Loan Closers
Please don’t confuse National Loan Closers with Nation’s Signature Closers which is a different companies. There are so many confusions between companies with similar names, that we wrote an article about that.
$25 to stay on the database?
This company became talked about quite a bit when they started asking notaries to pay $25 to stay on their database. Nobody liked this. Realistially, nobody will pay to be on your database unless they are really profiting by it, and what would notaries pay a signing service? Signing services are supposed to pay the notaries. The only time notaries shell out their dough is to pay for a spot on a reputable directory, and many notaries are not even willing to pay for that. The rumors about this $25 fee became so bad, that notaries would mistake 123notary for National Loan Closers when we called them to ask for our renewal fee — the response was that they didn’t want to pay to be on a signing company’s database. I had to explain that we were not a signing company, and that our only source of revenue comes from notaries paying to stay on board with us.
Payment issues?
So far, notaries by and large are stating that they are getting paid by this company in a timely manner. The complaints about this company were for their fee to stay on the database.
Other issues?
One notary claimed that National Loan Closers sends emails out when they have a closing in your area. This notary responded within 5 minutes, but the job had already been given to someone else. Another company tried something similar by having notaries bid on jobs. In the long run, this type of system seems to cause more aggravation than anything else. It seems more efficient to just call notaries one by one until you get someone who can take the job. That way, you only have one notary talking to you about a particular job, and not five.
To sum it up, National Loan Closers has some strange methodology which the notaries really don’t like. There is no crime in being different, just as long as you can do so without creating a riot, or creating too much commotion. I think that if you try out a new way of doing things which is not absolutely essential, and people hate it, then discontinue it. We have had to discontinue a few policies which were not popular, and it was to please the notaries.
You might also like:
National Loan Closers – company review page
National Loan Closers – forum discussion
More on identification
I love it that you guys share your stories and/or experiences with me. I feel that not only are they interesting they need to be told, serve to educate all of us of whats happening out here and also make us think. This is one of those stories. I was speaking with one of our long standing notaries about their renewal and some other matters which led him to tell me this story which I feel it very important because although no fault of the notary we need to remember to do our jobs to the best of our ability. To always be on the lookout for fraud.
It seems that this notary had received a summons to court and had been going to trial for the past few days and he was not at all pleased. I cant believe it because as far as I know it rare. It seems that a loan signing assignment had been given to him which he completed with no problems but it had turned out many months later that the person that had appeared before him and the person that had signed the loan documents was not the true borrower named on the documentation nor was it his property. The culprit was the son. So, I guess it is safe to say, the son desperately needed money for god knows what and had initiated a loan in his fathers name using the fathers property using his fathers name. I thought to myself “What kind of person does this”? Did the son actually think he was going to get away with it? I mean the note would possibly be changing as well and some of the other things like maybe the lender, etc. What did he think his father would not notice? DId he think he wouldn’t get caught??? or did he even care. I guess for some folks desperate times calls for desperate measures. So now our notary had to spend precious time for which he wasn’t compensated for in court because of someone else’s crime. The notary was required to produce his journal and had to ID the son as the one who had impersonated his father.
I asked the notary how the ID looked he said it was not a fake as far as he knew. He told me that nothing was out of the ordinary. And the signing went smooth.
Now the notary did absolutely nothing wrong in this case and it was out of his control but it got me to be thinking that sometimes we can become too comfortable in our job and our duties.. So the moral of this story is that we need to be paying attention at all times because there there is always somebody out here trying to pull a fast one….check those id’s carefully and document everything in your journal. And if your state doesn’t require you to keep a journal then you should. It may save you a whole lot of trouble if a ‘situation’ should ever arrive. The notary had his journal and all of the proof that he needed so he was in the clear.
Field Choice
This particular company has not received much commentary from notaries. So far, we have gotten many search queries about this company, but have very little information. Here is what we know so far:
One notary says that they got paid on time, but implies that they have had issues getting documents delivered on time.
A second notary claims that they didn’t get paid for a job that had been done about two months prior to their forum posting.
A third notary states that they get regular business from Field Choice, but declines to comment on how pleasant or unpleasant their experience was. I will guess, that their experience was not noteworthy, judging from the lack of notes.
Lastly, we have a notary who said, “They paid with no problems in 30 days. I would work for them again”.
This is pretty much all we know so far. Two good reviews and one bad one, plus a no-commentary review.
You might also like:
Field Choice – company review page
Field Choice – forum discussion
Where to get notary public?
If you need a mobile notary public, please visit our find a notary page, and you can find a notary anywhere in the United States. We even have 24 hour mobile notaries. If you need a notary office, then please consult your yellow pages, or online yellow pages. Please have your current identification handy, and your documents filled out before you take the time of a notary public.
Rules for notarizing a bedridden person
I have written a lot on this topic, and posts relating to this topic are in the hospital category on the right. There are no special notary laws for notarizing a bedridden signer. However, there are a few important things to know that are common when notarizing hospitalized or bedridden or elderly signers.
The identification must be current
A few states allow an ID to have been issued five years before the date of the notarization, when the ID technically expires four years after it was issued. However, elderly signers will commonly have an ID that was used between Christopher Columbus’ time and the French Revolution. If you do a signing for an elderly person (or anyone else), make sure their identification is current before you drive to that location (if you are a mobile notary).
The patient / bedridden person must be coherent and sober
It is common for nurses to drug a patient right before the notary arrives. Unfortunately, it is not legal to notarize someone who is so out of it that they can’t think or function. So, if you want that notarization to happen, put the morphine on hold for now! Keep the valium in it’s syringe for now! Additionally, if the signer can not move their arm to sign, you have a problem. If the signer can not talk enough to acknowledge that they understand the document, you are in trouble too.
Elderly people get scammed regularly – notaries beware!
Elderly people fall prey to all types of scams, and the “nice” people who you assume are the signer’s children could be scam artists who are conning the drugged patient into signing their assets away. The notary will (could) end up in court if someone gets scammed, so beware, and make sure the signer knows what is going on — or you (the notary) will be very sorry when the justice system hijacks you for two weeks without pay a few months or years down the road. It is not worth it!
Does the signer need to know English to get notarized?
Q. Do I need to know English to get notarized in the USA?
A. It DEPENDS!!!
In most states, the notary and the signer need to be able to communicate WITHOUT the use of a translator or interpreter. Direct communication is a rule. So, if you speak Ahmaric, but your notary only speaks Sudanese, then you can not be notarized by this person. However, if you speak a particular language (Spanish is a typical example), and the notary knows a “little” Spanish, then you might be able to be notarized by this allegedly Spanish speaking notary if you can communicate sufficiently to get the job done.
If you read notary profiles, notaries often claim to know foreign languages. Notaries will say they know “some” Spanish, or “a little” French, or “conversational” German. But, what does it really mean? In my experience, if you grew up speaking a language, or you lived in a country where a particular language is spoken, then you are likely to have a good level of proficiency. But, if you have never traveled, and know a few words of broken Spanish, and can barely open your mouth to speak, then you are not a very highly qualified bilingual notary in my book!
It is always the children of the non-English speaking signer who call the notary. The caller always knows English, but the signer often doesn’t. So, test your notary out and when the notary claims to speak Spanish, start rattling off some questions in mile-a-minute Spanish and see if the notary falls on his/her face! Does the notary understand you? Can they respond, even if it is slowly? Or are they simply lost?
Vietnamese interpreter available? Is this what the notary said in their profile? You can not use the interpreter for notarizations! Direct communication is required in most states. Chinese? Make sure they speak YOUR dialect, and not one of the other 400 dialects. If you are from Jiang-Su, and the notary is from Shen-Zhen, you might be in for a surprize when it comes time to communicate in the mother-language!
And if you want a Spanish speaking notary, don’t pick one that says, “I speak a little spanish”… Their profile should say, “Se habla Espanol”. They should claim their language ability in the language they are claiming to speak!
So, the bottom line is…
Find a notary who speaks your language — whatever your language is!
Notary income in various areas
How much do notaries make?
Notaries typically do not do notary work full time. Notaries usually work in an office doing some sort of office work, and have a notary commission just in case someone walks in who needs a notarization. Sometimes the notarization might be related to their dealings with the company in question, and other times it is not.
Mobile notary income varies a lot
The mobile notary profession used to be very fast from 2001-2006. Since 2007, things have slowed down quite a bit. There used to be many people who made a full time income as a notary public / loan signer. Now that things are slower, there are less full time notaries. But, what is their notary income working half time or full time? I can guess that a serious part time notary might make $1000 to $2000 per month doing regular notary work on the side such as loan signings. But, a full time notary might have a notary income of $3000 to $5000 in this slow economy, when it used to be above 100K per year in the old days for the notaries who really knew what they were doing.
Notary income in New York?
If you live in Manhattan, you might be able to make a lot of money. NYC has a lot of opportunities for mobile notaries because there are so many transactions going on, and so few mobile notaries. You could take the subway or cab around town, and make a mint. There is little competition, so the key is to get the word out that you are around
How do I become a mobile notary and make money?
Call us at 123notary at 888-838-1458. We train people how to enter this profession every day. Please do not try to be full time until you have built up a loyal clientele over a few years, but as a side gig, this is the way to go! We have loan signing courses, certification courses, and more!
