Fees, Fees and more fees

How do I figure out what my “overnight fee”, “email fee”, “esign fee”, and all these fees companies ask for when signing up to work w/ them. What are your average fees? Help! Please!

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There’s two approaches. One is try to figure out what the maximum you can charge is and still get a decent number of appointments. Of course you don’t get to listen in on all the other phone calls to other notaries in your area, so that’s hard.

The other is to figure out how much you need to make it worth your while. You should be considering how much is fair for you to earn per hour. Not the time facing the signer, but the total time to get ready for, perform, and follow up on the appointment. Then add expenses, such as car, paper, toner, and some savings to replace hardware when it wears out.

Electronic document that you print are the default these days, but if you want to separate it out, probably the biggest part that you should be charging for is your time in getting your hands on the document and getting it to print. Maybe 4 out of 5 times that only takes 15 minutes or less, but then there will be ones that they give you the wrong password, or it prints very slow, or for other reasons you spend one or two hours getting the documents printed. So you might want to consider printing to take 30 minutes on average.

If they want scan’s sent back, you may want a portable scanner, and you would want to charge enough to recover the cost of that over a reasonable number of appointments. Also, if they want to look at the docs and see if they’re satisfied before you can drop the docs at FedEx/UPS, you may find your self hanging around the shipping point for hours; you should charge for the wasted time.

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I am also just getting started in this business and I am trying to fill out an application for Amrock and it has a place for fees for 1st Mortgage, Home Equity Signing, Loan Modification Signing, Piggyback Signing and several more signing agent fees, I’m unsure of what to put. Any suggestions?

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Easy…what is your fee for

First mortgage signing (regular closing - purchase or refi)
Home Equity Loan signing (HELOC)
Loan Modification Signing
Piggyback Signing (signing a first mortgage loan and second mortgage loan/heloc in same sitting)
Charge to scanback entire package

They want an itemization of what you charge for the services you render…you have to know the scope of the work and what each signing means in order to give them a base fee.

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I’ aware they are asking what my fees are for the different services, what I am asking as a beginner is what are some standard fees for the different types of signings.

Thanks much,

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You’re probably going to have to research this platform and read what some NSAs charge in fees cause everyone charges differently based on their experience. As a new NSA myself before I got started I took Mark Wills Loan Signing System which helps give new Signing agents a baseline. Or you can research him on YouTube. He teaches all the packages that you’re inquiring about. When I finished his course I was confident knowing all I needed to know with all my documents, just needed to get the experience and I got my first direct signing with an EO because of his training. Have never done a signing as of yet with a SS. This is just my personal opinion. There are more training courses out there but I don’t know about those. God bless.

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Only you can answer that - only you know your costs and overhead expenses for providing these services…there are no “standard” fees - that would be price-fixing which is illegal. Any fees quoted here are customary fees charged by each notary which will vary from notary to notary and region to region. I’d say start with how much your state allows you to charge per notarization/signature, assume an average of 6 notarizations per loan signing package and take it from there; add in your fees for travel, time, costs/expenses, added value like scanbacks, large packages, etc etc - and please don’t forget to take into account your federal tax liability on your income. Notary fees are exempt from self-employment tax only, but that does affect your social security benefits.

BTW, to you and all the new folks who have been posting for advice, I hope you’ve all gotten yourselves an EIN from internal revenue - never ever give your social security number to anyone. Use the EIN - it’s easy at irs.gov and takes 5 minutes to get it.

And, mbhurt6 I’m sorry if I misunderstood your question

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