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Posted by  JanetK_CA on 2/24/18 3:57am
I think Justine makes a good point, which brings up some thoughts about contracts, something I haven't seen discussed here in a long while...
I think the key word in the post above is "negotiated", which is nearly always an option - although that varies greatly by hiring party and location. In my area, I have little, if any, room to negotiate with hiring parties who are more concerned with cost than with anything else because of the abundance of people willing to work cheap. So I don't work for companies like TS, where that's their main priority.
However, companies that value experience and professionalism are still willing to pay fair fees (although some signing services are also experiencing downward pressure on them). And those notaries who live in areas where hiring parties have few choices, in many cases do have the leverage to request and get higher fees than what these companies say they can pay.
As independent contractors, we NSAs always have the right to try to negotiate any terms of any contract. There are often clauses (non-compete ones can be the worst) that are unfair or virtually impossible to comply with, or outright illegal in some places. We always have the option to cross out and initial, or possibly offer alternative verbiage altogether. (Remember, those are written to protect THEIR interests, not ours.)
The trade-off, of course, is that we may never get any work from them. However, that's not always the case. Bottom line, we should always read them before we sign, and understand what we're agreeing to. A good agreement should be a two way street. In my experience, most of the time (but not always), the worse the contract, the worse the company... If we don't look out for ourselves, no one else will...
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