Hi, I’m Kelley, a new notary. I’ve just done a signing for them today. Has anyone done signings with them before?
I won’t work with them again. I’ve called before and after the signing and no one has answered the phone or answered when there was a question at the signing table. Very frustrating! They never notified the signers that they were to provide two witnesses, but I caught it in the paperwork when prepping, and called them to verify they would be there. So it worked out.
If the document requires witnesses, and you are not informed, you should still contact the signer and confirm if they have or don’t have the appropriate witnesses. You are supposed to know when the signing you took requires an actual witness. If the signer does not have witness then you are in your right to contact the company and either reschedule or (if possible) collect a witness fee and bring your own witness.
Ignoring a witness signature is the same as ignoring a borrower signature. The document is incomplete and the job is incomplete.
You can’t claim well “you didn’t tell me” because any experienced title agent, etc will answer “well you should have asked or you should have known.”
For clarification, I did contact the signers/borrowers and confirmed if they had witnesses and if the signing agency notified them that they must provide them. They were not notified, but in the end, they did provide them at the signing. It was stated in the documents that they needed witnesses, so I did contact them. The issue was that the signing agency did not notify them about this beforehand. All is well. I got paid from them. Other than that, the signing went well overall.
I’d have to disagree with the person who says you should not ignore witnesses lines. In my state, for loan appointments I ignore witness line and do leave it blank. The borrowers sign and I notarize the borrowers. I haven’t had this come back and witnesses are not needed in my state. I had a couple strange appointments where the borrower did have to get witnesses, they were at the appointment. Generally in a non-witness state the witness line can be blank. Sure if there are people around the home available to witness, I request for them to sign because it looks better to me but not always possible and only required in a witness state. This is for loans, on wills in my general notary I’m confirming that witnesses are available every time and usually the signers are aware of this as they self prepared their own will and POAs.
My state also bans notaries from being witnesses in the transaction (WA state).
I took a job from them 9/12 and got paid 10/4. If you find you have questions at the table - review documents more closely when you print. It’s easier to get answers while people are in their office. @alexia6ciulap don’t make your decisions based on what people may say on the forum. Reviews are opinions and not every one is valid. That’s just my opinion LOL. But if you listen to everything on the forum you’ll never get signings because you’ll price yourself out based on what some have to say and you’ll never trust anyone out there because there’s always someone who is going to be negative. Sometimes you have to take small leaps of faith.