Marcy had to go back to the hospital to notarize Esmerelda, the old lady who could barely talk. Her family assured Marcy that it would be okay this time. Marcy wanted her travel fee in cash at the door. She explained that if the signer was not fit to be notarized, she would legally have to decline notarization, but didn’t want to have any issue getting her travel fee should she decline. A month back, she drove an hour to a jail, waited for another hour only to be told that the inmate had been moved. The client who met her there didn’t want to pay a travel fee because Marcy “didn’t do anything.” Additionally, Marcy would have a beneficial interest in getting the document signed if she didn’t collect her travel fee at the door. She would want it to be signed so she could collect her $30. In any case, they paid Marcy her travel fee. Esmerelda was able to communicate and actually did understand the document. She summarized it. Marcy was able to do the Signature by X procedure and get her notarized that evening.
An hour after the hospital notarization, Marcy had a loan signing. At the signing, the borrower asked about the pre-payment penalty. Marcy found it in a snap since she had been studying what information is in what document (like all good Notaries should.) But, Marcy started to read the pre-payment penalty to the borrower and even explain what the terms of that part of the agreement meant. Marcy had overstepped her bounds. She knew she couldn’t give legal advice, but she wasn’t aware that explaining a prepayment penalty could be construed as legal advice. Luckily for Marcy, the Lender gave her a quick lecture on not giving legal advice, and Marcy was very careful from that moment onwards.
After Marcy’s two jobs, she came home only to find Patricia waiting for her on the front porch. Patricia had something urgent to tell her. One of Patricia’s other friends who was a Notary was getting sued, and her E&O insurance wouldn’t help. Marcy asked why. Patricia said that the error was not a Notary error, and that E&O only insures you against Notary errors or omissions. It was the Lender who made an error, and the borrower was suing everyone in sight. Even the Notary who had nothing to do with it. It would have cost this Notary $30,000 in legal fees to defend herself from this angry borrower. Then Patricia told Marcy what a Hold Harmless Agreement is. The Lender has their documents, but if you make the borrower sign a Hold Harmless, that can prevent them from suing the Notary as they agree not to hold the Notary responsible should anything go wrong with their loan. Patricia was a great source of knowledge tonight. So, Marcy consulted an Attorney and got a quick Hold Harmless Agreement written out, and she kept a stack of them in her car so she would be sure to have one for every loan signing form that day forward. She didn’t want to end up like that other Notary! Good God!
.
Point (28) Beneficial Interest
It is illegal to notarize a document that you have a Beneficial Interest in. But, what constitutes Beneficial Interest? If you or a close family member is named in the document as someone who will receive money, or privileges, then you could be said to have Beneficial Interest. If you would gain in any way from the document being signed, you have Beneficial Interest.
One interesting twist on this concept is that Notaries who get a travel fee don’t always collect the fee in advance. If you are in front of the signer who doesn’t have proper ID, and they ask you to notarize them anyway or you won’t get your travel fee, then you have Beneficial Interest. You won’t get your $35 if you don’t comply with their illegal requests. As a Notary, you are expected to uphold the law, and if your travel fee rests on you bending the law for someone, you are not only encouraging yourself to do something questionable, but you have Beneficial Interest in the document being signed which is purely illegal.
Financial Interest means that you will benefit financially from a document being signed, while Beneficial Interest means that you will benefit in one way or the other — perhaps financially, or perhaps in some other way.
Point (29) Negligence
What constitutes Notary negligence?
Failure to administer an Oath
Failure to take a thumbprint in your journal for a deed or Power of Attorney
Failure to identify the signers
Failure to inspect signatures
Failure to make sure signer signs in front of you for a Jurat
Failure to completely fill out a journal entry
.
Point (30) E&O insurance
Many companies want to hire Notaries with E&O insurance. It makes the Notary look more professional and covered. In real life, it protects you only from honest mistakes on notarizations. Most of what you are doing involves overseeing large business deals that get sent back to the lender via courier. Most of the problems you could encounter might include signing the wrong way (even though it might be notarized correctly), getting documents back late, a missing bank check, cross-outs, no-shows, or other mistakes. Notary errors on notarized documents might account only for 25% of the problems that occur in signings that could lead to damages.
If the Lender makes a mistake that causes the borrower damages, you could get sued, and E&O will not cover you since YOU were not the one who made a mistake AND because it is not a Notary mistake. One of our Notaries dropped out because she got sued for more than $100,000, because of some fraud that the Lender was accused of committing. The borrower was so angry that they want to sue everyone in sight regardless of fault. Unbelievable!
–
Additionally, in 2013 Notaries who had enormous E&O packages were being sued on a regular basis. You are like a guy in a Mercedes driving around a slum. You have the word “Target” written on your forehead and taped to your back. Sooner or later you will get mugged. Think like a Ninja. You don’t get mugged — you mug THEM!
My advice is to think carefully before investing in a handsome E&O package. If it will land you a good account with Chicago Title, then do it. Otherwise, it might make sense to have a smaller E&O premium and have all of your borrowers, Lenders and signing companies sign a HOLD HARMLESS agreement. The agreement should be drafted by an Attorney and could state that if there are any damages by negligence or omissions by the Notary, that you (the Borrower or Signer) will not hold the Notary responsible.
You might also like:
30 Point Course Table of Contents
http://blog.123notary.com/?cat=3442
The 30 Point Course Final Quiz – Jeopardy!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=14557
Posts about E&O Insurance
http://blog.123notary.com/?tag=eo-insurance
Help, I’m being sued, and E&O insurance won’t help!
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=3570
.
How to become a successful mobile notary from scratch
Anyone can become a successful mobile notary. The field is wide open. On the other hand, since it is so easy to become a mobile notary, many people do it which causes a lot of low priced competition. However, those who are very good at this profession seem to do well with it even in bad times. As of 2014, business is slow, but you can still have a nice part time income doing mobile notary work. Additionally, eventually the industry will pick up, and you might find yourself earning more money than you expected!
Step 1. Become a Notary
If you are not a notary, you can easily become one. It is a bit harder in CA, NY, LA, and FL where there are examinations, but talk to your state notary division about how you can become a notary for your state.
Step 2. Learn the ropes: Jail, Hospital & Mortgage Signings
Being a mobile notary is more than just hauling your stamp around with you in your car. You need to know how to handle typical situations that mobile notaries have to deal with. Mobile notaries who do well typically are experts at jail signings, hospital signings, and loan signings. Notaries who work in an office don’t need to know much about jail signings, because inmates can’t come to you, and neither can those with an IV tube stuck up their arm. But, if you are on the road, these are situations you have to know about. There are many identification and communication issues associated with jail and hospital signings that can get you in trouble if you don’t know. On the other hand, you can make a huge travel fee doing these types of specialized mobile notary tasks that the other notaries don’t know how to do (or want to.)
Mortgage signings
Signing loans can earn you big bucks. Signers make anywhere from $50 to $150 per signing. Fees fluctuate with the market and depend on who you are doing business with and how good you are. If you have a lot of experience and have many loyal contacts, you can set your minimum fee at $100 or $125 per loan signing if you are any good. You will need to know some basic Mortgage terms, and know the basics about 10-20 basic documents. You need to know where to look for the Rate, APR, prepayment penalty, when the first payment is due, where the fees are, and other basic information. You need to know how to handle name variations, initialing and borrower objections to problems in the loan. You need to know who to call when a loan signing is on the rocks. Signing loans is not rocket science, but there are concepts you need to Master.
Take our course!
http://www.123notary.com/loan_signing_courses.html
How can you learn about all of these complicated and scary types of signings? 123notary offers a comprehensive loan signing course that covers all of these issues in detail. Additionally, you can get free detailed information in our blog about all of these topics. Just browse around the categories on the right and read to your heart’s content!
Step 3: Active Marketing
Getting work as a mobile notary is a bit hard at first, but you can do it. Contact a dozen or more signing & title companies each week and get on their list. They will want copies of various types of information and a signed contract, so ask them what they want, and give it to them. You can also give your business card out to local nursing homes, hospitals, Real Estate offices, law offices and anyone else you can think of who might need a mobile notary.
Step 4: Passive Marketing
Advertising on the major directories is a good practice. Notaries often ask on Linked In which directory they should join. My standard answer is to join all of them, but not necessarily to pay for all of them. The strongest players in 2014 are 123notary.com, NotaryRotary, NotaryCafe, and SigningAgent.com lost a lot of steam recently, but is still in the game. If you join other directories, I don’t recommend paying for them as they don’t have a good track record. You can go on Linked In to research what the notaries say are the better notary directories too for an unbiased point of view. Hard copy yellow pages for your local area may or may not get you work — it is worth a try if you are serious though.
Being listed on the big directories is not enough. You need to maintain your listing like a pro. Fortunately for you, I am here to offer you free mentoring by email, so don’t panic! You need a well written notes section, a company name helps, reviews from your satisfied clients, and try to pass as many certifications as you can.
Step 5: Who to get certified by?
My rule is that you get certified by every loan signing directory that you pay to advertise with — even if that means that you get certified five times. I am currently recommending:
(1) NNA’s certification as it is an industry standard
(2) 123notary’s certification if you get paid advertising with us as notaries who get this get 2.5x the work from our directory
(3) notary2pro’s certification (although not an industry standard) is very high quality, they offer hand holding, and the learning you will get from it justifies the cost.
Step 6: Screen companies you work for
Many signing agents drop out because they worked for the wrong companies, didn’t get paid, and suffered financially. Don’t let this happen to you! Use our list of signing companies (which includes reviews) and avoid working for signing companies with a high ratio of negative reviews. Additionally, don’t do too many jobs for a particular company until they have paid you for previous jobs. Decide ahead of time how much credit you are going to give them and don’t let them run up a bill beyond your limit.
Step 7: Become an expert at scheduling and negotiating
You need to be constantly refining your skills to do well in this business. Although there is a lot of competition, few of them have refinement. Scheduling is a hard task, and you need to juggle when the e-Documents are supposed to come, when your signing is, and when the next signing is. e-Documents don’t always come on time, so learn to juggle well. Negotiating good fees is also an art form, so pay attention to our blog articles as from time to time we have articles about how to negotiate.
Step 8: Get a high spot on 123notary
We make our money selling high spots on our directory. We generally discourage people from getting a high spot until they have passed our certification test and have at least a review or two. But, if you are serious and want to get ahead, call us and ask how you can get a high placement in your area. We are often very flexible and offer six month trials to those just starting out. The Title & Escrow companies who use our site know that those who purchase high spots on our directory are serious, and those notaries generally get a lot more quality jobs from our site than those with low spots.
Professional backgrounds that help
If you have a background in Mortgage, Escrow, Loan Origination, or Lending, this can really help you do better in the mobile notary business as you will be working a lot with Mortgage documents. However, don’t fool yourself into thinking you know more than you know. Many Mortgage Brokers assure me that they know their stuff and don’t need my test. When I ask them simple loan signing questions over the phone, they can only answer half of the easy ones. Go back and study and master the art of the signing. Your background does help you, but your over-confident attitude can really ruin your career. Additionally, it is very different being on the Notary side of the table than it is being on the Lender or Broker side of the table. Try to learn this profession from out point of view.
Real Estate backgrounds do not help as much as Real Estate Brokers claim. You are not anywhere near as familiar with the documents as you claim. As a matter of fact, those with Real Estate experience cannot answer simple loan signing questions any better than those with no Mortgage or Real Estate experience. Approach this profession as a beginner and learn the ropes one by one. The people skills you learn from being a Realtor on the other hand, can really help you. General business skills and being businesslike help more than any technical knowledge you may have acquired in your former professional life.
Don’t be afraid to ask if you need help
And as always, 123notary is there to help! If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask!
.
You might also like:
Notary Marketing 102
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19774
20 stories about animals at signings
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=3074
Best marketing resources for Notaries
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=16322
Beginner Notaries 103 reading list for new notaries
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=21120