In Florida, loan signing agents seem to be rebranding themselves as signing services. I recently received a signing order from Stamper Signings, which, compared to Snapdocs, appears to be a one-man operation that operates as an individual loan signing agent, not a service. Is there anything in the state statutes that addresses the requirements for becoming a Notary signing service? I haven’t found anything yet. In the past, I have passed loan signing assignments to colleagues, but I never portrayed myself as a signing service. Please share what are your thoughts?
Unfortunately, signing services are completely unregulated, so anyone can (& does) claim to be one. A certain former NSA, now a ‘trainer’ even encourages his students to start one–for the really big bucks they can make. They start out green and underfunded, leading to a lot of slow/NO/pay hiring parties using Platforms, who, incidentally, have made it pretty easy to find a notary. It really is a shame (almost a scam) what has negatively happened to this once-lucrative profession.
5 Likes
I have done a couple of orders for Stamper and yes he is a sgl person operation, but he does pay on time though.
I started as a NSA in 1987 and a couple of years into it, I started a one person signing service which became a LLC in 2013. During that time, I made sure that all of the notaries that I contracted with got paid every two weeks based on when my clients paid me, and at least by the 30 day mark even if I had not been paid by my clients. When COVID hit, I transitioned my business to fully RON and no longer farm out closings to other notaries. My policy with the clients was if I wasn’t paid by the 30 day mark, I would not do any future closings until I received payment. Repeat offenders meant that I would no longer do closings for them. That helped me weed out the bad ones. My recommendation is take a chance on a signing service that pays what you are willing to take and weed out the ones that don’t work.
3 Likes