I have my first signing coming up and was wondering which documents need to be printed on legal. Thanks in advance
Look at how the docs are scanned in - review before printing…that should tell you. Hopefully you have a dual-tray printer so two sizes won’t be a problem.
If all else fails, check w/ hiring party (remember, recordable docs printed on legal size usually cost more to record than letter size). Title may not like it as they end up being out of pocket for the additional recording fees - unless they’re recording electronically - and even then it may be more.
If you can’t get a definitive answer, default to all legal to avoid wasted paper and time. DO NOT shrink the docs and print on all letter - the security instrument probably has to be in a certain font/print size and if you shrink it you’ll make it unrecordable.
You can also go join Notary Rotary - they have a pdf sorter so you can print all legal then all letter - removes all doubt.
Good luck
Thanks for the feedback
Going to add one thing here - before you default to automatically all legal, clear it with your hiring party. Make sure it’s acceptable to them (many are okay - they just cut the recordable down to size if needed) - but get it cleared before you do that…or the extra cost will come out of your pocket.
I use page separator to split my docs
Part of being in business means choosing the right equipment to run your business efficiently. You need to invest in a quality, fast dual tray black and white laser printer, and a separate, decent scanner, or an All-In-One color ink jet that will print, copy and scan for you. You’ll be out a few hundred, but you don’t need to be screwing around wondering which doc gets printed on which size page–not when you’ve been given a job that signs in two hours, is a 30 minute drive away, and you have to still print the docs. Take my word and thousands of completed signings for it.
If you have a SnapDocs assignment the files will automatically indicate if legal or letter length is required.
Some signing company portals give you the option to print by size which is helpful if you are first starting out and do not have a dual-tray printer. If you want to save money and need to print two sets of docs, print the second set ‘fit’ and do not select ‘choose paper from pdf source’ because you will still print legal even though the data has been shrunk to fit. Legal paper costs three times letter so I DO NOT recommend printing all legal unless you want to bankrupt yourself and certain documents like the Deed of Trust, or mortgage are nearly always letter size. A second advantage to printing the borrower copy on ‘fit’ is that if there is an error in printing, all data will be captured on your second copy and you can swap it out with the lender’s copy.
Some print programs allow you to change the view of the documents, most display at 115% so you cannot tell right away which are legal and which are letter. If you change the view to 50% or less you can scroll through and check for the page length.
It is very important to check your printer trays before printing and make sure that there is enough paper loaded. If you omit this step and do not check your documents, you will be half an hour away at a signing and horrified to discover that your data did not print correctly as legal pages were printed on letter without the ‘fit’ feature. In this case, if you have printed the second copy ‘fit’ and unchecked the ‘choose paper size by pdf’ button, you will at least have a copy with all the data. Remember the borrower copy is a place holder that is unsigned. They should get a signed copy either by mail or email later. You swap out the lender copies that have mistakes with your backup copy from the borrower’s package. I would also recommend going over the docs before you go to the signing so you can see if there are any print errors, or special considerations like POA or Trust signatures. There is no standard protocol for these signings it depends on what the Title company or Lender requires. Ask when in doubt.