Posted by JanetK_CA on 8/23/06 1:31am
Msg #140152

My no-sign rant...

First I should say I've been very fortunate to not have any no-signs in quite some time. However, I let myself get talked into taking an assignment for this evening from a lesser paying company that I used to do a lot of work for. I should have known better! Even before the apppointment, I was just a tad ruffled about the fax-backs they didn't tell me about and the more and more common list of threats to the already marginal fee they were offering to pay if I should slip and make an error. Well, you guessed what's coming.

What follows is the content of an email (with names changed, of course) in reply to the hiring company's confirmation with the usual threats of "appropriate action will be taken" if I don't do this or that. I'm trying to talk myself out of sending it, but I frankly don't care if they don't call me anymore, so I probably will. Just thought some of you might appreciate it...

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FYI, I met with the Smiths this evening and here is what resulted:

☺ Mrs. Smith's first name was misspelled on all the lender docs where it appeared
☺ Mr. Smith's last name was misspelled on all the escrow docs where it appeared
☺ There is a five-year prepayment penalty the borrower wasn't expecting, says he wasn't told about and doesn’t want

After lengthy discussions and an unsuccessful call to the loan officer, I convinced the Smiths to correct the spelling errors and continue with the signing in the hope that it will be acceptable (“some are, some aren't”), whereas not signing at all would ensure delays, at the very least. However, when I pulled out the Note, he discovered the final problem and insisted on canceling the signing (after another unsuccessful call to the loan officer).

My question to you is this: what "appropriate actions will be taken as a result" of errors on the part of the lender and escrow people? Oh! You have a trip fee?!! So the notary pays for THEIR mistakes, too?!! This signing cost me (at minimum) printing supplies, gas, wear and tear on my car and office equipment, hours of time printing, traveling, making phone calls and sitting at the borrowers table while they hemmed and hawed, and the loss of another assignment I could have taken. (I turned down two, actually.) Is it me, or is something wrong with this picture??!!!

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I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time... Feels good!! ;>

Reply by christi ausherman on 8/23/06 2:23am
Msg #140154

Sounds incredibly tempting! n/m

Reply by Joy223 on 8/23/06 5:49am
Msg #140166

On one of my signings there was a line that read......"All documents must be sent back by 8am the following business day or your pay will be docked $10. I let them know that the place I send from up here in Northern Michigan doesn't open until 9am. So she said she would make note of it. Not sure if they will dock me the 10 bucks or not. Is this normal? Why would anyone want to hang on to someones loan papers in the first place???

Reply by PL on 8/23/06 8:04am
Msg #140185

Hey. I didn't see you at my appointment last night.

The exact same thing happened to me minus the wrong names. I had an extra person on the docs who hadn't lived there for a year. All we could is call a time out and I went back to the house with a bunch of worthless email docs. Dang.

Reply by MichiganAl on 8/23/06 11:16am
Msg #140225

I've written plenty of letters like this, but I've just never hit send. By the time I'm done typing it, I feel better. And I'm saying this as I return from a two hour signing where a deed that was supposed to be signed wasn't in the package, so we had to drive to Kinko's to receive the fax, only to find that it was wrong, people listed that aren't on title, and that someone that was supposed to be there to sign on the deed was never told to be there. So now the borrower will have to handle it on their own. And there were 10 pages in the middle of the package that were from someone else's loan in Oregon. But of course, no action will be taken, my fee is my fee, and no one there will even know the trouble that the borrower and I had to go through to get it done. C'est la vie.

Reply by Janet Berger on 8/23/06 2:34pm
Msg #140295

What I did send...

Fortunately, I decided it would be prudent to sleep on it. Here's what I changed the last paragraph to before I sent it:

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BTW, the confirmation I received stated several times that if things aren't done properly, "appropriate actions will be taken as a result". I'm curious about one thing... When the error is on the part of the lender and escrow company, what does your company consider "appropriate actions" on behalf of the notary who spent the time, materials and energy trying to complete this signing?

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I've already received two nice responses along with a statement that it would be forwarded on to higher management. One of them confirmed a travel and printing fee that is just $15 less than the original agreed upon fee. Not what I would have wanted, but better than I expected.

I personally feel that when our time is wasted because someone else didn't do what they are supposed to - often what the law requires them to do, like sending a GFE in advance, for example - and we aren't paid because of their errors, that it is nothing short of theft of our services. (BTW, I stand behind my work and wouldn't expect to be paid if an error were my fault.)

I think we all need to work toward trying to raise awareness of this fracture in our business. I don't know what the likelihood is of ever changing it, but just like trying to fix a misspelled name on a set of documents, if we don't try, we can be sure that nothing positive will happen...