Benefit to Consumer: Using a Notary Signing Agent to help sign your loan

Among mobile notaries is a special group of notaries called 'Notary Signing Agents'. For the remainder of this article I will refer to them as NSAs. An NSA is firstly a notary public to witness signatures and administer oaths where applicable on certain notarizations. Secondly, the Signing Agent duties can be a breath of fresh air for a borrower. In signing my own home loan years ago, I went to a local Escrow office in Sioux City, Iowa. The documents were placed in front of me and I was hard pressed to get many details from the person who watched me sign them. How an NSA differs from many Title or Escrow officers is that they will spend the necessary time with you and at your convenience of time and location. A loan signing can be a daunting experience for many borrowers. They have very little knowledge of the process and are not familiar with the documents. Enlisting the services of an NSA can set your mind at ease. A professional, knowledgeable NSA will walk you through the documents. The NSA cannot give you advice or opinions about the loan. If you have questions such as what is my interest rate? Did they set up an escrow like I wanted? What is the length or term of the loan? These are questions that the NSA can point out the answers to on several documents within the package.

When I explain to someone what I do as a profession, I often hear, 'I wish you would have been around when I signed my loan. They stuck the pile in front of me and told me to sign.'

A good NSA will be certain that when they leave the signing with that signed loan package, they have done all that they can to find answers to your questions and they feel you are comfortable with what you are signing.

An NSA actually has a very hard job. We must stay unbiased, so we cannot give opinions or advice and we cannot act as an advocate for you, the borrower’s part, or on the part of the lender. There are times we may find something unusual and all we can do is point it out and if it seems strange to you, you have the option to question it with your lender.

Unfortunately, the lender may give you answers that are biased to his own pocketbook. In other words, he may give the answer that you want to hear so that you will sign the documents. It may not be true. It is imperative that there is someone who can aid the borrower in making an informed decision. There is a multitude of information on the internet that may enlighten a borrower of their rights and information regarding the lending process but #1. How many people will actually do this research; and #2. How many know where to look. Places a consumer may look for information would include the Consumer Information section at www.UnitedNotaries.org and www.HUD.gov .

I think the NSA should be required to be licensed and given more ability to act as a counselor. If this had been done, maybe we wouldn’t have so many foreclosures on our hands. If the NSA had the ability to counsel maybe they could have been a little more forthcoming in asking the borrower if they were aware that in one year or two years their interest rate could begin to spike. Now keep in mind, I have not dealt with any of these exotics that have such a possibly out of control interest escalation option. I have dealt with several loans that had an initial ‘teaser’ rate and in one or two years it would become adjustable. I ALWAYS point out when it can change and how much at each change date and what the lowest and highest the interest could become. The general comment I received was, ‘That’s ok. We will be refinancing before two years is up’. What happened if any that I was the NSA on? I don’t know. I can only speculate that maybe the borrower has some late payments or some other credit issues that reduced their credit score to where, at the point where they attempted a refinance, it was not possible. I hear tales of borrowers starting to receive solicitation calls to refinance and it is not until that time that they have been made aware that the loan is going to begin to adjust (This is not on the loans I’ve handled, but across the country). This type of scenario can only lead me to believe that the NSA who handled their loan did not point these things out on their note, as I do. This is why I feel strongly that the NSA profession needs to require a licensing that outlines and trains that these things are imperative to review. This cannot all be blamed on the NSA, either. I wonder how many of these loans were signed at either a Title or Escrow office opposed to with an independently contracted Signing Agent.

In the coming months I will be working toward making contacts within the state of Iowa to require licensing of an NSA. It is unfortunate that we cannot create a mandatory training and licensing on a national level. There is already too much diversity within the notary laws from state to state. The last thing we need to do is add more in the way of lack of uniformity.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, American Escrow Association and American Land Title Association have been diligently working toward Uniform Closing Instructions (UCI) over the past few years that are coming to fruition this year, however, they are a voluntary set of guidelines that lenders and Title companies can ‘choose’ to adopt or not but without them being enacted into legislation or federal regulations, they still run the risk of being so uncertain, so ‘up for interpretation as applicable to state laws’ that I do not think they will serve to correct the problems or inconsistencies we currently run into.

Hired as a Notary or Signing Agent?

It has come to my attention that some are receiving calls from borrowers to notarize the few items within a loan package for them. I am aware of instances where the NSA is insisting to charge a full signing agent fee even though the borrower only wants them to deal with the pages/documents needing notarized. I think this is a scam and I think the borrower may see it that way also. This does not reflect well on the profession as a whole.

I understand there are companies who contact the NSA and tell them they only need them for the few requiring notarization but they end up dealing with the borrower performing all signatures at the meeting. In the instance of being hired by the borrower, you must clarify with the borrower what you have been hired to do. If you have only been hired to perform notarizations then be certain that is all you do and quote your fee accordingly.

Here is a link to another article on this subject by Diane Cipa on Radical Title Talk: http://radicaltitletalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/duplicative-effort-continued.html