Even among the most respected agencies, I just witnessed a $12,000,000 purchase sent to me where the agency gets $350 and I was offered $125 for a 179 page package. This is an agency that always calls on me for its packages in San Francisco. No holiday bonus sharing I see? No respect for the ones who go out and do the work they would have nothing without our doing this for them? Title companies have come directly to me and offered $250. The Bank of America recently did this. The agencies are really being unreasonable taking advantage this way.
The agencies are arrogant and entitled much of the time. They think theyâre special and are proud title companies come to them. They treat notaries like crap and the industry needs to regulate notary work be paid equally!
Notary Publics canât afford to do this work that pays a pittance in this economy. The price of gas, goods and our time isnât meeting inflation since 2010 when I started this. Inflation is sky rocketing! I wonât work for agencies that donât split 50/50 pay with the notary.
Have you ever considered these agencies rely on our time and technical expertise to upload scans into their database system so their customer can receive it all automated? That these agencies rely on our time to upload everything into their website for each job so their customer can be easily notified of appointment, scans and shipping info. We have to let them know through their tracking system where we are in terms of the signing timing. Agency employees used to track this manually.
They are relying on our skills and time to do data entry and uploads for them that they are out of the loop much of the time drinking their ice tea while everything is all on us. We have to wear masks and fog up our glasses during the signing! We put up with all kinds of issues in this job and donât get properly compensated in my humble opinion.
When notaries feel âdupedâ by title/lender/escrow companies because they didnât ask enough questions to âqualifyâ the assignment before, or even after they accepted it, should maybe take a moment and think this situation over. For example, if and when I pick up an engagement that for whatever reason, I am having difficulties with, I immediately call the signing service and the originator of the deal and discuss it with them. Most often, we can work something out and when we canât, I resign from the deal politely, I never complain and I always ask them to think of me when they have more deals. I reassure them that I will do my level best to accommodate their needs. This usually works, but, not always. I just try to be as professional as possible and make my case.
I doubt that the notary profession will ever be âregulatedâ. Each state has its own version of what notaries are responsible to do and getting all the state legislatures to agree on a single method would be next to impossible. Gee whiz, they canât even figure out uniform traffic laws or COVID-19 protocols.
Who would do the regulating? Surely not [another] new bureaucratic agency. And ideas about notaries unionizing? Fahgetaboutit. No, Iâm afraid notaries are kinda like corporals in the Army. Weâre over all the privates but we ainât sergeants so we canât give orders; we just take 'em and do our best.
This is not a job for everyone. But, if one is patient (very patient) and creative and one can find ways to be memorable, AND, one sticks to their guns regarding the fairness of fees, one can enjoy a pretty good income in this business. The folks who claim that one can make $100K or more annually are just fooling us. Sure, itâs possible, just not very likely for all the reasons many who post on this site have repeatedly stated. In my view, one should set reasonable earnings expectations given their location, competition, assignment feeders and willingness to work hard, and then try to exceed them every day.
Thanks for the info. I spoke with the owner of the agency who boosted my fee to $150 past on number of pages. He said the $350 wasnât going to be billed to the title company. This agency is very good and he wasnât upset at all I said I want a 50/50 partnership.
ok be careful if they find someone less fee you are out
no loyalty at all
my fee are based on size of package and type of loan
also travel time / scan backs and drop docs time
I had a refi the other day 147 pg 58 signatures and 10 notarizations
no scan back and 20 min from home
i got $125.
took one hour to sign , with questions and etc
the client pays me in 6 days or less and never a problem contacting anyone if i have questions
docs come in advance no problems
IMO i factor that in as well
I was happy
i had a company send in the package a 45 page loan guide they expected me to print
and give to their client
Yes they have us do their work when all they do is push paper.
I called title and said i do not print loan guides unless you increase my fee( in this case $25.)
âŠfunny thing is signer asked if i was giving them âanother loan guideâ lol and were so happy i wasnât
i also reported this to the title officeâŠit was good for a laughâŠ
But youâre right, they take as much advantage as they can . which isnât terrible unless they wonât pay for the extra work on us.but many times I ask ahead of time what they want back in the package âŠIn my state its only loan docs
no instructions and other non loan docs sometimes that saves me 10-30 pages
they send the same instructions w every job so i have a set printed on file.and skip through the new ones careful to be sure nothing has changed
w scans most of the time they just want to see signatures because they want to be sure u didnât miss anything
certain loans need more pages for funding that day like HELOC but not all of them require scan backs
good luck
