Fixing botched signings
There are notaries out there who get calls from signing companies to fix loans that some other notary goofed on. The comment of the seasoned notary is always, “Why didn’t you call me in the first place?”. The signing company always says, “Because, you are too expensive”. But, how much money are you really saving if the notary job has to be coordinated twice, done twice, and if the signing company and lender get a huge headache?
Taking risks
Its always risky hiring new people. You never know if they are going to be any good or not. But, the seasoned notaries often want double or triple what a novice wants. How much is experience worth? In my experience, if I send a Fedex, it takes five minutes, but if it gets lost and I have to play detective work to figure out what happened, and perhaps send it again, it could take an hour. I have other better things to do in that hour.
It would be easier if…
It would be better if there were some database somewhere where notaries would be rated. If someone was new, but people wrote some commentary about how the notary did their work, the others who are interested in hiring that notary would at least have some idea of how the notary worked.
Companies keep a database
Signing companies do keep their own database. They are always trying new notaries out. If the new notary does a bad job, they get blacklisted in the database, and will not receive any more work. However, the next company down the line doesn’t know what happened and will try the notary out for themselves.
How risky is it?
The question is, is it better to hire new notaries and take a risk of a loan being ruined? How risky is it? If you get paid $150 to get a loan signed and offer $50 to a notary, that is $100 profit. If you get a good notary who wants $125, then you only make $25 which is not much of a profit. That is the motivating factor why signing companies don’t pay much. You make quadruple the gross profit by hiring newbiews. After you pay your staff and your office expenses, you might be making 10x the profit by hiring newer notaries. The business math is always interesting.
I feel that the Title company should have more of a say as to what notaries are hired for jobs if they care about their loans. If they leave it to an intermediary, it will be like the shipping companies of 1000 years ago who brought expensive Arabian race horses to Europe, but fed them the cheapest food. When the horses got where they were going, they were too weak to run anymore…
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Rules for notarizing a bedridden person
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!
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