Being a loan signing agent is an interesting experience. Sometimes, your job is as easy as signing a few papers, for instance mortgage modification assignments. But other times it’s like trying to collect a debt, dealing with borrowers who dodge your confirmation phone calls. It really just depends on the borrowers you get. If you have borrowers who want to sign their loans right away, then your job is very satisfying. If you have to play phone tag with someone forever just to get them to confirm and schedule the signing appointment to fill out some paperwork, then it’s time consuming. However, I’d say it’s simple work for the most part. In my humble opinion, we shouldn’t have to make four attempts to schedule the appointments. Quicken Loans used to give out mortgage modification assignments with the appointment already scheduled. Now it seems Quicken Loans is hiring FASS, who do not schedule the appointments. FASS require us to make four attempts to contact and schedule the appointments and complete the assignment within a 4 day window. Now that’s additional work and time on us, but it’s not reflect it in their fees. We are a fee for service business, so I do charge for making those phone calls that’s included in the fee I request. Here’s the down side of performing mortgage modifications orders, but you are not able to get the assignment scheduled after four attempts. If the order isn’t completed, we do not get paid!
Most of my cancellations come from taking LMA where I have to confer with signer and make an appointment time. They don’t return my call and the order dries on the vine. I wont take orders that are not set by the signing company
As Forrest Gump observed: Life (&, apparently, Loan Mods) are like a box of chocolates.
you never know what you’re going to get. An eager signer or one who’s hiding under their bed. Either way, they never seem to be quite as simple as they make 'em out to be. Hit 'em high.
My experience is that voice messages get returned. And loan modifications are just agreements made to keep people in their house. I don’t mind doing them.
I just sent FASS a fee adjustment request of $10 per phone call or they can have their staff handle the matter of contacting the borrower.
You are going to charge for a,confirmation phone call?
Well okay then. Do you charge for texting a signer?
Hope that works out for you.
Yeah, I would not like the SS or title company to set my appointments and make my confirmation calls. I have too many questions for signers/borrowers and too much to discuss with them directly that SS will not handle properly.
Also, IMO, to charge per phone call? Phone calls are part of your quoted $xxx fee - it’s all part and parcel of your loan signing service. That said, I won’t rely on text messaging either… I need to speak with these people directly.
JMO
LindaH-FL, I think what you’re saying is really cool, because this forum let’s us compare notes on how we handle things as loan signers. For example, often we don’t get all the details about a particular signing order until we see what the hiring company wants. As I mentioned before, I think that’s what makes this forum amazing! It’s amazing that there are multiple approaches to this kind of thing. We learn about other signers’ experiences and it just helps us all understand it a little better. For instance, at Quicken Loans, they handle their mortgage modifications in the same way they do their other orders. They send them out to us with a specific time and date.
Then, we have FASS, a middleman who sent us a mortgage modification order with a date to be completed. In FASS instructions, there was a requirement that the notary try to schedule an appointment and report the call every day for three consecutive days, if an appointment wasn’t scheduled on the first attempt. When FASS called me, I quoted them a price based on distance, printing, and the type of work I was providing. If a company wants extra services outside the normal scope of our jobs, I reserve the right to request that they pay more to cover the additional services. Thanks LindaH-FL for sharing your opinion.
johnsonps306,
Not charging for the confirmation call, but for the additional phone calls. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know! I think my time and services are worth something. Are we the only pros out there that don’t put a price tag on what we do? Let’s face it, as professionals, we all deserve a fair price for our labor and services. Just look at the news with all the talk about “tariffs.” Tariffs are a hidden cost that business owners just pass along to the consumers, right? So when title companies or signing services send us extra activities to do with a new signing order, do you think we shouldn’t increase our fees to reflect the extra work involved? I place a monetary value on my time and skills. It’s about fair compensation for the services I provide, as well as the time I put into them. I don’t have a problem taking these steps, and so far, it’s worked well for me.
I’m never going to charge extra for confirmations that take more than one call in one day. 30 seconds isn’t billable and that’s what a confirmation call takes usually. It rarely takes more than one message and one text to get a confirmation completed in my opinion. The last loan modification I did the signer responded to a voice message. The only jobs I couldn’t get confirmations on was that horrible real estate company that wanted people to sign over the right to sell their house for 40 years. I refuse to take those anymore. I consider what I do a package. That’s just me. I think I should get paid more doesn’t everyone. But I charge what I know I can get paid. Because at the end of the day I gotta work.
As an entrepreneur, we get to pick our own path and strategy, and I think that’s awesome. My way may not be the same as yours, and that’s okay. We can agree to disagree. When I’m doing mortgage modifications, I keep an open mind and don’t let my personal feelings affect things. Where you spoke about your feelings on 40 year mortgages, there are borrowers that may feel differently, end of the day it’s the borrower’s decision. So I will serve and notarize borrower(s) documents, who are signing 40 year mortgages. As far as getting work goes, I aim for quality fees over volume, so I set my prices to maximize my profit margins. I’m not going to attract clients who want to pay next to nothing, but it works for companies that appreciate quality service.
I get a faster response time with text messages and then you have the conversation in writing.
Just a comment that seems apropos to charge for everything. Had an SS deduct $5 to re-issue a lost check because they sent it to a 7 year old address, despite the fact that my correct address was on the invoice they wanted & received…as well as every e-mail I sent during the time between the Confirmation and Completion/Invoice.
What’s good for the goose…
My perfect wish list for this job would be to be more like a cable company, plumber, or almost any other service coming to your home. A time window would be nice that the notary can use at their discretion. It wouls definitely make it easier to schedule multiples out of town. Most of my work is further from home as Im in rural PA (40-60 minutes). It would be nicer to have flexibly to know i can bump someone up or back an hour. Even if i get an assignment that says 2pm flexible or not flexible would be a big help. Also requiring all documents to be ready day prior to signing. In the last several years I’ve never had an issue until this week but signing #2 didn’t have my documents ready in time for me to leave for signing #1. I did message them and let them know I had an earlier assignment but apparently my time didn’t matter. Both assignments an hour from home but their homes were 10-15 minutes apart. Well, i ended up making 2 trips and spending 4 hours and over 200 miles of my day in the car. But yes, the phone calls whether it be modifications or just confirmations are getting ridiculous. I usually dont even leave voice mails anymore. If they dont answer, straight to a text.
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I don’t run an outbound call center. Time sitting making phone calls making nothing is counterproductive to my bottom line. After that 3rd attempt, I’m sending a message back to the signing service/ or title company “SIGNER NON-RESPONSIVE”. File is then moved to the back burner.
Right, we sell our time for profit…
Reading through this thread, I guess I am lucky because all of my LSA orders come with a preset date/time and all I have to do is call/text to confirm the appointment. Most signers are fine confirming through text message and I use a standard template which I created to save myself time sending the messages. Rarely do I get a signer who won’t reply to text messages, and those folks are usually older and less tech savvy.
That being said, I am in the camp of those who view the confirmation call as a courtesy included in the base fee. I absolutely detest being nickel and dimed as a consumer so I avoid doing it as a contractor. I can afford to eat the cost of the additional 30 seconds to 1 minute to make a follow up call/text to an unresponsive signer.
What I can’t afford to do is eat the cost of printing docs and driving to the home of a no-show signer. I had a signing once where the signer was a disabled fellow who was to sign a settlement agreement with a former employer. His mother - who was his caregiver - agreed to meet on the same day that she had an appointment for an unrelated court case and, as a result, was a no-show to our appointment. The signing company that hired me tried to shame me into accepting non-payment for my travel/printing fees, but I sent them a professionally worded email detailing my costs and the value of my time in keeping up my end of our contract. I ended my email by telling them to disregard my invoice and take me off their notary list. They responded by paying me the full fee and apologizing for their original snide email response to my request for a travel/printing fee.
Fletch…I love your approach. I learned my lesson on not charging enough. Attorneys often are the ones to point this out to me. I have now learned that my expertise is in my presentation, my reliability, and my flexibility to adapt to my clients’ individual needs. My stamp is only what’s worth in CA per stamp. My fee’s must also reflect what my attorney client is charging their client. Often it is significantly higher than the $15 per stamp and miles driven. peace! kk 