Remote Online Notary (RON)

Anyone ever hear of video-conferencing? Where more than 2 people are “skyping” or whatever platform they use? As I’ve said before - this can easily be done with video-conferencing - party 1 Title/Escrow; party 2 signers; party 3 RON notary. All done online. It’s been done in Florida already - and electronic documents are being accepted for recording here.

I agree - days are sorely numbered for those of us who don’t jump on this bandwagon - past my time to invest in this, but I feel sorry for all the new folks being churned out without being warned they’re walking into an antiquated system that probably won’t sustain them.

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Hi dear , can you please let me know how do I switch platforms ?? I have docverify but I never use it !! Do you know if is a way to cancel it?? Thanks in advance

Switching platforms with the state is easy. You just send them an email or letter, advising them to switch you to whatever other platform you use. They will respond with a letter advising you have been switched.

To remove yourself from DocVerify will likely not save you any money. I saw within a day or two of signing up and paying that I was not going to be able to use it. They didn’t offer any support and I couldn’t figure out how to use their platform. So, I emailed their sales people (I believe I found them via one of their emails or looking on their website, not sure now) and asked them to reimburse me and they did. You have, I think, a 30-day window to request removal with reimbursement of your annual fee. If you were paying as you go, then you won’t lose as much, obviously.

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Video conferencing, at least in the mortgage world in Florida, won’t work. These platforms use an identity authentication method that you can pay for on your own. That is that system where the program randomly generates five multiple choice questions regarding personal information you would likely know about, which it gathers from credit reports and locate services, etc. That is the law/rule here. Additionally, the platform records and saves your closing video, as well as makes an online journal. You have to be able to save this video/info in a secure format, while still being able to pull it back up should anything ever come up about that particular closing. You can do all of this individually, I suppose. But the cost would likely be more than what you are being asked to pay for the platform usage, which incorporates all of these aspects to comply with local laws.

Because of all of this, I don’t believe Video-Conferencing would work for most typical notaries.

The good news is, I still think we are years away from being taken out as mobile notaries. Many people still aren’t as computer comfortable as you would imagine at this late stage. And, many people just don’t have the equipment or connectivity to make this easy on them. Lastly, until the lenders are all onboard, this won’t happen 100%. So there is still plenty of time.

The move to do this online was only stepped up because of the Corona Virus. However, many of the lenders fear change as much as we do whether because of the cost or whatever. So even now, most lenders haven’t tried switching to an online format.

The brokers doing business with the company I am training with are being pushed to offer online closings. Maybe brokers are the ones who are going to have to push lenders to convert for the convenience of their borrowers? I don’t know.

I was a RON and I love it.

Was the test difficult?

I’m in WA and am considering RON, which goes into effect in October 2020. If a notary follows all the rules, guidelines and laws required, wouldn’t the notary be safe. A notary keeps a journal of all her notarial acts now, so do you think with RON, the same would apply.

I haven’t taken the RON course so I’m ignorant of most requirements. Having input from other RON certified notaries is helpful.

I understand the difference between E-notarization and RON, so are you totally comfortable with the E-notarizations?

I’m in Washington State and am considering RON which will be in effect October 2020. I agree that saving driving, paper and other costs would be one main reason for going with RON.

I admit I’m nervous and haven’t decided. I think finding the right platform is a major step and even that sounds confusing.

Hi,

I am so confused with all of this RON stuff lol. I currently manage a law firm where we all work from home. I have been a notary for 20 years and recently applied for my certification for RON; however, I’m trying to figure out which provider to sign up with. Originally I was going to use DocVerify because of their authentication process and storing the videos, but I hate the credits and all that is involved. Currently I haven’t been notarizing documents because I work from home which is why RON was so appealing to us. It is another service that we can provide for our clients; the majority of which are out of state. My concern is that DocVerify is more than what would be necessary in my situation. Any thoughts? I would appreciate any feedback at all. TIA.

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I completed the RON training but need to find an affordable RON Service Provider, all I wanted to do was expand my Notary options and it has been complicated my application returned twice ugh… I hate to just give up after spending the money.

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[quote=“berishtax, post:30, topic:11181, full:true”]
“I completed the RON training but need to find an affordable RON Service Provider, all I wanted to do was expand my Notary options and it has been complicated my application returned twice ugh… I hate to just give up after spending the money.”

Now that’s a cautionary tale if ever I heard one. Seems nobody even knows what kind of ACTUAL demand there is for this either. The notary seems to have all the liability for not much ROI.

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So, you might want to try Notarize.com. Assuming you want to do GNW, it is free to you. The only thing is that they are updating the software to let you have your own clients but I don’t know if that is done already. Alternatively, it is a great way to do GNW for them. It doesn’t make a lot, but when they start handling loan closings, you will be in early enough that they will allow you to do that work as well.

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Is that the outfit that pays $5 for first notarization and $1 for each subsequent one? RON notaries in Florida can charge $25 per notarization - not sure I’d want to give a third party almost 90% of my fee…

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I am an Electronic Notary in Washington. I applied for a RON certification. I asked for more info on what platforms are the best and I haven’t rec’d one reply.
Any information you have would be so helpful.
Thanks

I hear what you are saying. But beware that, as you know, the industry tends to be “feast or famine” so 1) nice to have something to fall back on that is not part of this industry, 2) you can do a lot of these in the hour so the $5 add up as you wish (also, we can charge in Florida up to $25 but how much business do you do in that field? Plus you save on travel, etc), 3) you can drum up your own business and use their platform at no additional cost, 4) and eventually, I see a future where maybe we will not only be doing online loan docs too, but maybe even start cutting out the middlemen???

There may be some Cons, but don’t right this off completely. It has plenty of Pros as well!

Hi Rlsnotarialservices,
There is no “better” one. It depends on your needs. As a business owner, you have to do your own research.

The regular platforms that are out there are too expensive for a notary to maintain. And it makes no sense anyway because different lenders/title companies use different ones and most aren’t willing to use any…yet.

For instance, Guaranteed Rate, who is a large national lender, they use Notarize. But, they aren’t getting enough support from the brokers who sell Guaranteed Rate to borrowers. So we still have a ways to go until we as notaries get to use any platform for doing loan closings.

Now, sellers and cash buyers can be done providing the title company is onboard. But, some title companies, such as Sunbelt, have their own internal platform they use to esign borrowers. Therefore, they don’t use outside notaries.

So the whole RON thing is still very complicated. But it is cool to know that state governments are opening up the ability for lenders to switch to remote closings. Just cannot predict how soon we will actually be doing RON closings. Unless someone mandates something, I don’t see it happening any time soon. Heck, if people didn’t jump onboard for RON closings during the pandemic, what would it take???

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I still ‘believe/think/opine’ that if/when it actually takes off, it will be handled by the platform’s employEEs,
cutting out independent notaries completely and replacing SS.

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Maybe. I think there will always be circumstances that require a notary, even if electronically. I am glad that I found this business when I did and glad I only have a couple of years left before retiring altogether!

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Are there any other platforms besides DocVerify that people have used in the Washington State area? I checked into Notarize.com, but they are not accepting RONs from WA. Anyone else?

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