Hello everyone-
I just received my commission and now I have to get sworn in and order my supplies. I will be taking a signing agent course in October to further my notary skills. I know in the beginning I will have some nervousness, but that will settle down once I get the hang of document signing.
I see a lot of talk about negotiating and dealing with horrendous companies who take months to pay, but what should be the normal wait time to be paid for your services?
I have broken down the method in which I will base my rate and it goes like this:
- Mileage - $0.58 per mile (California)
- Signatures on Document - $15 per person (California)
- Supplies (paper use, etc) - $30
- Courier Services - $100
Is that fair?
JMO you’re going to be outbid bigtime and you won’t get any work with the above fees. For general notary work (which you should be doing before any loan signings - be an outstanding notary before trying to be a great NSA) you can charge the $15/signature plus mileage and time but I find it hard to believe that you’d get the fees this schedule would generate doing loan signings…example - loan signing with 8 notarizations, married couple, so 16 signatures:
25 miles total (if you lucky) - $14.50
16 signatures - $240.00
Paper/supplies, etc - can’t even put a price on this
Courier Services - $100.00
Based on your outline you’ve priced a loan signing at $354.50+ - I just don’t see that happening.
Also, don’t forget to include Federal and State Income Tax in your calculation of your fees. Your income is subject to federal income tax - the only exemption is the fees you can charge for notarization (for you, $15/signature) is exempt from Self-Employment tax only. I don’t know how your state income tax is structured so I won’t comment on that.
Don’t forget the other little items - advertising, business cards, listings, certifications, commissions, etc etc - PER HOUR OF YOUR TIME - time is money and your time and expertise have a value.
To answer your question, when I did loan signings, 30 days was my net due date…unless I agreed to 45 prior to signing. I would not agree to 60…so I’d say 30-45 days (days, not business days) is acceptable.
Good luck
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Thank you much for your input on the matter. I actually meant to put $10 for courier services lol. Minus the changes it comes out to around $234 and some change, but it depends on the location of the signing as well I imagine.
Even $234 is steep - although California seems to be different as far as fees go - I don’t think you’re going to get that much on all your closings - especially being new. Sorry to tell you that…but it’s the truth.
You can forget about getting $15 per signature doing loan signings. Notarizations are just a small part of the ‘package deal’ of printing, traveling, time spent at table making sure they ‘sign as typed’ on all docs–not just the notarized ones. I think it’s better to ‘think hourly desired wage for how? long’ + travel + all expenses + PROFIT. Truth is, they usually don’t have a clue how many notarizations a particular package has, so you wouldn’t get any meaningful info to base a quote on. Generally speaking, the prep time & table time are 2 to 3 hours (this is a broad generalization & will vary greatly from lender to lender and TC used. Then add the rest.
Don’t really know what you mean by ‘courier services’. Travel time & mileage are of paramount importance as you might be going 5 miles or 50…and you have to be prepared to for all the variables.
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I live in California (Los Angeles) and I am an NSA and I also do notarial services for individuals. California allows Notary Public’s to charge a maximum fee of $15 per signature and travel fees (usually between $15 (if local) and $25 (if not local)) for notarial services. Those are the fees that I charge for when I get calls from individuals that call me for signings (power of attorney, promissory notes, etc) that are not home loans. As far as home loans go, I try not to accept signing that are less than $100. However, if the signing is in my community or surrounding communities I will do a loan signing for $75. At the end of the day, these are two distinct services and you need to make sure that understand the differences between the two.
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Somewhere between A & C the truth lies. $75 is really not enough and $355 is too much…(tho’ I’ve gotten that and more, but a lot of travel was involved). $100 is a reasonable ‘base’ fee to start with & then add the many variables. “A” is at least trying to figure out what will work and be profitable–what we’re actually selling comes down to whatever value we place on our time PLUS all costs. If you don’t value your time, nobody else will.
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Thank you to everyone on your counsel. I thought about a base fee of $100 and then adding travel cost and 30% for taxes and just go by that.
Before deciding measure your costs. You need to know your average cost for travel per mile and your average cost per page for printing. (don’t forget that all legal pages cost more.) You need to understand that ANY service you offer requires a profit. The biggest decision you have to make is what price offers you to make a profit and what price does not. I avoid arbitrary pricing based on what my time is worth and rather establish a range of pricing where accepting a marginal amount of profit is much preferable than the cost of turning that offer down. As an example, you get a large package with no additional fee for printing. If this customer ordinarily has small packages,it would be foolish to turn back the order since on average you are well ahead in profit due to a lower average cost per page. Most NSA’s won’t admit it but percentage-wise printing fees are the largest profit per service offered. I will think real hard before I allow deal to go by based on the print fee.
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