Frank does a loan signing on Monday and drops the package in the drop box at 3pm, calls in the tracking number and then wants to go camping. How many days should Frank wait before embarking on his camping trip and why?

I think that Frank should wait until he confirms with the Lender that the package has been looked over in its entirety, or until the rescission date, before going camping. If there is any issue, they might need Frank’s immediate communication and cooperation. Notaries who are not responsive after signings get regular complaints on our review system.

But, let’s review why you should wait and how long you should wait.
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1. Camping = not responding to emails = complaints
The most common source of complaints in our review system is due to Notaries who are either rude, make Notary mistakes or are unresponsive after a job has been completed. Sometimes the Notary forgets to send the documents in, and sometimes they just don’t answer their email when there is an issue or question with the documents that were sent in. If you don’t respond, you get complaints. If you are camping, you might not be in a position to answer emails quickly and might not have internet access.

A lot of wise guy Notaries say that they would take their laptop camping and that they only go to a camping spot where there is internet. I think these Notaries are personalizing the question rather than answering it based on general sense which dictates that camping spots are normally out of circulation and that the question is not about THEIR camping spot, but about camping spots in general.
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2. Types of issues
If you hand in loan documents, there might be several types of issues.

(a) A missing document. Perhaps Title never included it in the package, but you will be questioned and blamed if it does not come back to them.
(b) A missing signature or initial. This one is your fault and it will come back to you within a day of receiving the documents.
(c) Recording issues normally happen after day five and are rare. Your stamp’s impression might be too light or some arbitrary and nitpicky complaint about your seal could happen. You cannot hold yourself hostage forever, so focus on more common issues.
(d) Fedex was delayed for some reason. If so, you get called and you have to answer questions about where you dropped the package, when you dropped it, what the tracking number is, whether you gave it to a person or put it in a box, etc.
(e) A missing check or document that was to come from the borrower and be included in the package.
(f) A redraw and resign. Perhaps the borrower decides they want to change something about the loan and there needs to be a resign. This happens from time to time and you will get called if it does.
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3. Timeline
If there is a problem with a loan, it is unclear how fast you will find out about it. Here is my approximation of a timeline.

Day of the signing — the loan gets signed and dropped in a drop box hopefully at a manned Fedex station or other courier station or box. If the package gets dropped after the cut off, it doesn’t get picked up until the next day or early evening.

Day 1 — An overnighted package might be received on this day, the day after the signing which I call Day one since the day of the signing doesn’t count as a day in the rescission calendar. You might hear from someone on this day if there is a problem, but it is more likely you will hear from someone on day two.

Day 2 — A 2 day air package or delayed overnight package will probably arrive on this day. Just because the Lender received the package doesn’t mean they looked at it in its entirety yet. It might be sitting on their desk. You are likely to hear from someone on day two, but not necessarily.

Day 3 — By this day, the package will most likely be received and looked over. But, a few stragglers might still not have looked over everything and the secretary might still have the package in a pile on her desk.
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Day 4 — By now, the right to rescind is probably over or will be over by midnight if there was a Sunday or Federal Holiday within the four calendar days. It is probably safe to go camping now.
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Day 5 — If there are recording issues, those might surface after day five, but are rare, so don’t lose sleep over them.

4. When is it safe to go camping?
If you alert your client in writing before the signing happens saying that you are out of circulation and that if there is a problem, you are on your own — you still might get blamed, but at least you put the alert in writing.

I would wait until day four to go camping OR call the Lender and make sure he/she has looked over the entire package before going camping. Sending the package by fax and having them inspect it the afternoon you completed the package is yet another option if they are available to inspect it. Most issues come to surface on day two or day three, so by day four you are likely to be off the hook. Check your emails once a day anyway just to be a good service provider.

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You might also like:

How to lose half your clients while on vacation!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=596

Typical things Notaries do wrong!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=58

Notary Marketing 102: Phone & Communication Etiquette
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19764

Many Notaries are a little rusty on Federal holidays. Plus, a few of the Federal holidays are a little bit complicated to understand. Here are the 2017 holiday schedules. There are ten Federal holidays in all.

Jan 1 — New Year’s Day
Jan 16 — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Feb 20 — Washington’s Birthday
May 29 — Memorial Day
July 4 — Independence Day

Sept 4 — Labor Day
Oct 9 — Columbus Day
Nov 10 — Veterans Day
Nov 23 — Thanksgiving Day
Dec 25 — Christmas Day

New Year’s Day When we ask people to name a holiday in January, most people omit to answer New Year’s Day as it feels like it is celebrated more in the end of December — but, that is New Year’s eve which is not a Federal holiday.

Martin Luther King Day Then we have MLK day. If we celebrated holidays in chronological order, Columbus Day would come before MLK day. We would have a day commemorating when slavory in the new world was originated, when it ended, and when civil rights began to be recognized. But, we have our holidays in inverse chronological order with MLK day, then Lincoln’s Birthday and then finally Columbus Day. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most famous civil rights activist in America. He had a dream about people finally treating each other fairly for once. The Twitter MLK had a dream where people would be judged each other by the content of their 140 characters, and not the color of their link(s). I had a dream too, and then my alarm clock went off.

Washington’s Birthday is the most misunderstood of holidays. The reason being that it is also informally called President’s day. The holiday is based on a merging of Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays as celebrating both was just too much. Incidentally, Washington’s birthday is an optimal day to get a discount on a Sealy mattress. If your mattress is more than eight years old — it’s time to replace! Without George Washington or someone like him, we might still be a colony and have to pay a 3% tax to the British without having any representation.

Memorial Day: The holiday I always forget is Memorial Day. Perhaps, we should call it forgetial day. Independence Day is always fun, but it feels more like Afghanistan with all of the fireworks going off and car alarms. I guess that is what the revolution felt like — but, our flag (and my hubcaps) was still there, and that is the main thing.

Labor Day (pronounced “Lay-bDay” in Boston) must be popular with the union folks, but Notaries don’t get enough credit for their labor, especially with all of the micromanaging and fax backs. If Notaries were in charge, we would have Fax Back day, where we burn fax backs in a parade and then stomp on the embers. Sounds like something they would do in Iraq.

Columbus Day (not popular in the Lakota reservation) is the day we celebrate how — in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and Italians named our country! Vikings discovered America in the 1100’s, but didn’t get much if any credit in history books while Siberians “discovered” American accidentally while hunting caribou in 28,000 BC. and appropriately named it, “The sheet of ice to the East.”

Columbus committed acts of genocide on native peoples and forced many indiginous peple into slavery not to mention forced conversions to Christianity. Personally, I think that Columbus Day should more accurately be called, “The White Man Day.” Columbus had many goals such as the pursuit of gold, and geographical knowledge that would lead to the subjugation of the Americas for economic gain through colonialism, a trade route for African slaves, sugar, and tobacco. How progressive!

GINO: “Hey, we a named a your country — capiche?”

JOHN: “Oh, cool. What did you name it?”

GINO: “A- MER-ica!!!!!”

JOHN: “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

Veteran’s Day is a day we remember Veterans, but they very rarely have the opportunity to sign a VA loan on their own holiday.

Thanksgiving is a much nicer holiday. We gave thanks to the American Indians in Massachusetts for teaching us how to plant corn and survive in a cold and unfamiliar ecosystem. Subsequently, 96% of East Coast Native Americans died of diseases courtesy of European immigrants. What about the remaining 4%?

Black Friday is thought of by Notaries as a holiday because nobody works on Black Friday. However, it is officially a working day according to the government. HOWEVER, it is up to the Lender if they include Black Friday as a day to rescind or not. Half of Lenders do not county Black Friday in the three day period and treat it more like a Sunday.White Saturday is the day when people eat leftovers (generally white breast meat) and should be renamed, “Leftover day.”

Christmas, the most commercial holiday of the year is a day that hardly anyone works and is an official Federal Holiday. People normally take the 24th off as well, although it is technically a working day. If you call Notaries on the 24th, they will turn down work on account that they are baking cookies or spending time with the grandchildren.

If the Lakota Nation could name a holiday, they would call it “Broken Treaty Day” where broken treaties that the USA and native people’s made were systematically broken on a whim. What’s the point of having a treaty if you don’t abide by it?

Anyway, now we know our ABC’s, how America was discovered, the kinds of unfriendly behavior the early colonialists engaged in, how we thanked the Indians, how people got their civil rights, how we eat leftover turkey, and how we bake cookies in rememberance of our savior and lord from Nazereth while declining Notary calls. The end!