You are so right about people not considering our time. I was thinking about that this morning as I was waiting for my car to be serviced. The guys who worked on it didn't have to travel to me to do the work, but I'm sure the hourly rate they post for labor includes enough to cover all their overhead, including tools, utility bills, insurance, etc., etc. And when was the last time any of us have had someone come to our home to provide a service without charge enough to cover their time? Plumbers, electricians, etc. generally charge a service fee to even show up.
I still believe that the mentality in most places about notary fees is based on the expectation of a notary in a store front, not someone providing a mobile service, especially as a full time business. And I believe that the paradigm is also that a notary commission is a sideline to some other business, done as a public service. For example, when I was a young girl, my dad was in the insurance business and was also a Notary Public, mostly as a convenience to his clients. That type of notary is certainly vanishing here - or at least their numbers are dwindling greatly. Is that the case in the rest of the country, too?
I suspect that changing that paradigm will need to be a big part of getting notary fees adjusted to what, IMO, they should be in other states.
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