Witness Signing

Hey guys so I have a witness signing and the fee is $25. It is also 20+ miles away from my community area. Yikes, I already accepted just want to know for future jobs is this normal pay for witnessing. Thank you.

Witness signing you don’t print or anything. You need to bring your IDs and you show up to watch signer/signers sign and you sign as a witness and get paid. Another notary is actually doing the full signing and notarize. $25 is not practically to drive 40+miles to. But do what you’re comfortable with:)

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I would call the co who hired you for Instructions of course.

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$25 is good in my area for witnessing but it looks like they are not paying you for travel/time . I personally would call them back and request an increase in the fee. I don’t know about you but gas is $3.30 a gallon right now so I def would not drive 40+ miles for $25.

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Depending on your state laws (because in some states a notary can also act as a witness as well) or if your bringing a witness (because the signer can’t get one and you are prohibited from acting as a witness), in either case I charge $25 for that alone, and my travel/service fees are separate (based on your rates). If the signer has their own witness, I just charge them my service/travel fee and notarial act fee. Also, who’s printing the docs? Factor this in if you are. For example: on my invoice I would have 3 different line items, the witness fee, my service fee, and the notarial act fee (quantity of docs that require your act). Hope this helps!

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I’m sorry - I’m confused…and I’m going to throw this out there…

JMHO - this has to be the stupidest request I’ve ever seen from any hiring party; if the document only needs to be witnessed, why are they contracting a notary to begin with? Especially when there’s no notarization involved?? Just send the doc to the signers and tell them what to do. What are they thinking?? And what do they know about this transaction that they’re not telling??

I, personally, would not even entertain this type of request, and here’s why - I’m a notary first and foremost. If no notarial action is required, then why do not need me - they just need the signers to do what they’re told.

Back in the day, notaries going out and doing loan signings were referred to “witness closings” - or “remote witness closings” - that changed to loan signing agent and signing agent with the evolution of the business; so make sure you haven’t agreed to a $25 for a full loan package signing; someone may be pulling the wool over, so to speak.

Good luck - let us know how this goes. And I really don’t mean to offend anyone - but had to get this off my chest.

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Hi Linda, in my personal experience, I have never conducted one of these where a notarial act didn’t come with it. To perform a signature witnessing, the Notary must have the signer and witnesses personally appear and provide satisfactory proof of identity. The signer and witnesses must then sign the document in the Notary’s presence, and the Notary then completes the appropriate notarial wording (depending on state regs of course).

It is very important to be aware that a signature witnessing is NOT the same as an acknowledgment or jurat, though the acts are similar in some aspects. A signature witnessing is different from an acknowledgment in that it requires the document to be signed in the Notary’s presence. A signature witnessing is also different from a jurat, because while with both acts the document must be signed in the Notary’s presence, a signature witnessing does not require the Notary to administer an oath or affirmation to the signer. Not all states authorize their Notaries to perform signature witnessing’s.
Also, a signature witnessing is an official notarial act, and is NOT the same as a Notary being asked to witness a document in a non-Notary capacity. A Notary or other officer authorized to perform notarial acts can perform a signature witnessing in the states that allow it. This is definitely one of those transactions that is state specific, and doc specific, but at the end of the day, I “shrink” it down to the doc asking for the notary to act. If there is no notarial act involved, I don’t touch it. I do several of these in my state with Wills, POA’s, Trusts and Adoption paperwork. In Contact6 post, they didn’t stipulate whether or not a notarial act was required as well, so not enough info there to justify my post.

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Thank you, @vvs.notary.services - I’m going to have to assume (and we know what happens there) that this is not something we’re authorized to do in FL

I based my response on the original post combined with VIPNotaryCO’s description of the assignment. I probably shouldn’t have done that but that’s what I did.

Thanks for the clarity

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I have heard the normal process that mobile notaries usually follow for a full refi package called a “witness signing”. For people who talk this way, any signing that doesn’t happen in the title company office is a witness signing. So I have no idea what the original poster is being asked to do.

My state, Wisconsin, has a notarization for an unsworn statement, which is basically a witnessing of a signature. It has certificate language and is subject to the same fee as an acknowledgment or jurat. I rarely get requests for these but have done them.

What a coincidence. Just had one of these yesterday. My wife does several estate plans. In Florida a notary can notarize and witness many documents. But, not on some docs; Wills, Self-proving affidavits, deeds and others. One of her attys. called us both to be only witnesses and the atty. would be the notary. 2 witnesses were needed and in estate plans the notary ( atty. ) have to be sure the clients understand what they are signing so the atty. will ask them questions in front of us to prove they are of sound mind. Many of the docs require 2 witnesses. Nice, no printing, no notarizing, no scanning. $150 Thank you, Lord.

The beauty of living in a bustling metropolitan area as opposed to me up here in the boonies where $10 is too much to ask. Congrats John! (and Mrs. John :smiley: )

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Thank you for this, but my area has Hundreds of NSA’s in my Zip. Seems every area has it’s problems!

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