Posted by DianeCipa on 11/7/07 4:06pm
Msg #220143

I have a question if anybody is game.

1. Follow this thread on Notary Rotary concerning LSI:

http://www.notaryrotary.com/forums/forumsbody.asp?id=&forumid=1AAA00000003&messageid=463116&code=&smsg=&requestid=&action=view&format=threaded

Zoom in on the LSI response:

LSI Response:

“We appreciate your interest, but at this time we are not referring borrowers out to any of our mobile signing agents for the notarization of their POA’s for Closing Stream. We refer them to their bank, FedEx Kinkos, UPS Store or AAA. If this ever changes, we will keep you in mind. Thanks!”

How did this response make you feel? It made me angry. I felt as I did when I posted this several months ago:

http://radicaltitletalk.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-felt-dagger-twisting-in-my-back-as.html

Reply by DianeCipa on 11/7/07 5:01pm
Msg #220146

I know I have a crack in the comments about notary signing agents. Try not to let that get you mad because I truly admit that ARE good notary signing agents out there and if you are reading this you are probably one of them.

Anyway the point is that the title industry is moving to a fully automated mode. They might not be able to accomplish it if we can get regulators to understand the difference in quality.

Last year they introduced automated searches combined with insurance and this year they have introduced on-line closings. They no longer need notary signing agents if they are able to pull this product off and get major lenders to sign on.

There will always be a percentage of consumer who will not be comfortable in this type of transaction, but I argue that the title companies are taking the business down a dangerous road.

Combine these new products with the off shore productions centers and we'll soon have foreign closers on-line holding one piece powers of attorney in hand closing refinance transactions.

Our smaller differences are battle skirmishes. The fight against automation is the real war. We can fight it effectively by getting our arms around quality and high ethical standards.

We need each other - all ethical settlement service providers - closers, title insurers, lenders, attorneys, abstractors, real estate agents. We need to focus on the greater good and support each other and find ways to work together that create a unified demonstrable force that government and consumers easily recognize as their safe place.

Thank you for inviting me today. I know this is your turf and if you don't mind - I'm always a reader - may I join you from time to time?

Take care and I want to say "may the force be with you" but I think that's a LITTLE over the top so I'll just say good night. LOL

Reply by Charles_Ca on 11/7/07 5:26pm
Msg #220149

Actually automating the process will improve quality and ethics standards. With the automated system there will be no lapses in ethics, computers can't act unethically (Prime Directive or GIGO whichever you like) and the quality will be the same all across the board. You can read from the questions asked and the comments made that the quality of notaries (since they are not agents we won't call them NSAs) who perform signings varies greatly right now. If you were to poll the majority of originators and real estate professionals I believe that automation is where the industry is headed, like it or not. The notary business is such a small franchise that they have very little clout in the final decision, again like it or not. Frankly, I like a title company with its own title plant (First American is my favorite and I subscribe to a number of their services) there are many advantages to be had and its not like the title company is out there ignoring the hard copy titles in recording offices, they constantly parse against the recorders' data.

Reply by John_NorCal on 11/8/07 8:37am
Msg #220180

I have to agree about automation is where the industry is headed. It isn't necessarily a bad thing with proper controls it makes life a lost easier considering the mountains of transactions that can be found on any property search. Care has to be taken that the garbage in garbage out factor is addressed.
I think the real issue is the blind POA issue. Diane raises the possibility of fraud when some POA is floating out there and worse yet, signings conducted by off shore cartels. This is something that should not be allowed. A proper signing should take place in either a title/lawyers office or at the borrowers site with experienced signing agents. A major investment like a real estate transaction should not be left to chance.

Reply by Pat/IL on 11/8/07 10:27am
Msg #220199

Re: In Reply to Charles

I have to disagree with your statement that "the process will improve quality and ethics standards". At least in the short term, I see the opposite happening.

Quality standards are now being sacrificed in favor of expediency and cost-savings. The main reason for this is that the "thin" title plants do not contain all of the information necessary to produce a title search adequate to insure marketable title. The information often comes from several different government offices, not all of which provide the records in bulk to the owners of the title plants. Those that are assembling the plants are not likely aware of the local standard practices, quirks in the records, etc., which vary from state to state, county to county, and even town to town.

Compounding the removal of local knowledge from the picture is the cost-savings of sending the records -your personal records - to foreign countries to be indexed by people who may have never stepped foot on U.S. soil. I don't know how the privacy laws (if any) of The Phillippines or India protect your records from further sale to other industries. But, I certainly don't see a raising of ethical standards there.

To sum it up, long term improvements in quality may be possible but they are a long way off. Unethical people will always find a way around ethical standards. The first American products that you enjoy are probably just fine for the purposes of a realtor or a mortgage broker. I can see the value in a quick check of the record to obtain some advance information. First American, by the way, employs thousands in their offshore endeavors.

I am not against title plants. Many are better maintained than the county records. My beef is with the thin plants, assembled without the benefit of local knowledge, and a "one size fits all" result. It is not a one-size-fits-all industry.

Reply by DianeCipa on 11/8/07 12:56pm
Msg #220238

Re: In Reply to Charles

Pat is absolutely correct.

Reply by Kevin/Ct on 11/8/07 1:08pm
Msg #220243

I think you need to review the problems resulting in the abstracting industry from holes in the system before you can make a recommendation such as this. The online search systems started to appear several years ago, and in many cases have been entrusted to people in India, China and the Phillipines. I receve calls from them occasionally to perform a search when there is a hole in their chain of title, and they can not complete the search. I refuse to do it.

I would never entrust a stranger with a power of attorney to encumber the title to my property...especially if he were not located in the U.S. and subject to our legal remedies.

There will always be those gullible individuals that will do whatever they are told to close the loan. Fortunately they are in the minority. Many people want the immediacy of a answer to their questions at a closing which is not going to be forthcoming with any degree of certainty from someone located in New Delhi having little or no knowledge of the transaction.

Reply by Teresa Kutz on 11/7/07 6:42pm
Msg #220152

Re: Sorry! Had to step away for awhile.

Diane,

Thank you for having the fortitude to stop in and chat. I am glad you did. Hopefully there will be other questions for you as you pop in and out of this forum.

Have a good evening!

Reply by Becca_FL on 11/7/07 8:12pm
Msg #220155

Hello Diane. Sorry I'm late to the party, but I've been

a little busy lately. I'm so glad you have decided to join us here and add your input. I've followed your blog off and on for a while now and appreciate the fact that you are here for debate and conversation.

Please do stick around. It will take me at least one day to catch up on the posts from today alone and I look forward to conversing with you in the future. Believe me, I would much rather speak with you here, on this forum, then be quoted on your blog.

I've got a ton of posts to read...I'll check back in tomorrow.

Welcome, Diane.

Reply by Pat/IL on 11/8/07 9:48am
Msg #220193

Re: Automated Title Products

The National Association of Land Title Examiners and Abstractors (NALTEA) recently sent one of its own to participate on a panel discussing automation in the title industry. Among the panelists at the ATIM conference, Lynn Hammett, a NALTEA board member, was the lone designee seated to provide an opposing viewpoint. She wrote of the panel discussion in NALTEA's October newsletter. The article, NALTEA Discusses Automated Title Products With For those interested, you can find the article at

http://www.naltea.org/pdf/458090e7-c50b-4bc3-8312-116bfd080dce.pdf

The article is on page 3. ATIM is an association of companies working toward the automation of the title process.

Reply by Yowheelz on 11/7/07 5:02pm
Msg #220147

Hope their mortgages don't "result or may result in the issuance of title insurance" or they are runing afoul of the law in MD. Maybe a note to the MD insurance commission is in order.

Reply by NCLisa on 11/7/07 8:38pm
Msg #220156

TitleSmart is what most NC attorney's call title searches!

Most attorneys out this way tack onto existing title policies, it is the standard of practice in this state. The paralegal or abstractor calls the local TC's to see who issued the last policy, have a copy faxed over then a current owner search from there. That is it. I tried very hard at my last law firm to have them only tack on from owners policies, but that was not a requirement, the attorney's said that it was ok to tack onto any lenders policy, even if the transaction we were doing was a purchase. After 7 years out here as an RE Paralegal I vowed I'd never work for another RE Attorney. The short cuts they take, not telling the buyers they should have surveys done when purchasing, etc. was just too much.

I so miss being an EO in Northern CA!

Reply by Kevin/Ct on 11/8/07 1:36pm
Msg #220250

Re: TitleSmart is what most NC attorney's call title searches!

I think the mistake that you may be making is that "tacking on" as you call it depends on the title search not the title insurance policy. If the title search performed to date is correct...it does not matter who wrote the policy. The abstractor is picking up the information from the last search and updating it. That information is sometimes reflected in a former title insurance policy, or it may be communicated to the abstractor in the form of the earlier title search.

Whether they should advise the buyers to have a survey performed depends on who the attorney represents. If he represents the buyer then by all means yes he has an obligation to exercise reasonable care and he should recommend a survey.

Reply by NCLisa on 11/8/07 2:25pm
Msg #220255

Re: TitleSmart is what most NC attorney's call title searches!

I am not incorrect. We are instructed to search from the date of the prior title insurance policy. We don't know what attorney or abstractor did the previous search as the TC's don't share that information. The search is from the date of that policy forward. That is what tacking on in this state has become. It is a joke!! There is no guarantee the the previous search was performed correctly or even on the right parcel or that the previous attorney and abstractor did their job correctly. I've worked for only 1 attorney in the last 7 years that did 30 year searches. Out of state TC's that call for title searches don't even want tax information these days. NC law states that all title searches of NC properties are required to be certified by a licensed NC attorney, and since most out of state TC's aren't doing that, I turn down a lot of title work.

There are many attorney's here have no problem using metes and bounds legal descriptions from the 1940's that say "BEGINNING at Mable Brown's cherry tree and going 25 feet SW to the cement corner of James Olives garage....." The landmarks in most of the descriptions no longer exist, and the legal description is still being cut and pasted and used again today.

I like things done right. Since the paralegal here does 99.9% of the work, it sickens me that the attorneys don't even want their staff to do it the correct way, just the easy way. I've got tons of friends that are real estate paralegals, and most of them have the same stories to tell. I can plot a metes and bounds legal description, but I haven't met any "young" real estate attorneys or newer paralegal that can even do that, even with the software. How do you check the calls on a metes and bounds description if you don't plot it?

In NC, the only attorney that closes a loan/purchase represents the buyer (actually the lender). Sellers sometimes use the buyers attorney to prepare their deed/lien waiver, but most of the time have it prepared elsewhere and bring it to the closing. .

Reply by BobbiCT on 11/8/07 6:56am
Msg #220168

Notaries Public are Public Officials in CT

In CT a Notary Public may charge a MAXIMUM of $5 per notarization and a maximum of 35 cents per mile for travel as a notary public. If the ONLY service I am contracted for is to perform a notarization for a Power of Attorney document, that is the maximum I can charge under State law.

I tell callers 1) I do not travel for 35 cents per mile, 2) their local bank branch will perform the notarization at NO CHARGE for customers, and there are over 53 thousand notaries public in Connecticut. They can be found at every Town Clerk's office, real estate office, insurance company, law firm, doctor's office, hospital, UPS Store, FedEx Kinko's, many drug stores, etc. Also every Probate Judge and attorney in CT can perform a notarization.

It isn't a matter of liking it. It is the law. Our Secretary of State did not commission PUBLIC OFFICIAL notaries to become signing agents, bankruptcy processors, immigration document processors, etc. We are commissioned as a service to the public and Connecticut's businesses; not to make a profit. A notary's PUBLIC OFFICIAL duties are limited by statute and, at $5 maximum fee, rightly so.

I miss the additional income from non-attorney "loan signing" services beyond the notarization of a document. However, the businesses and their legal counsel that made that decision, have the right to their individual business models. Only time and lawsuits will tell if the Power of Attorney mortgage loan closing business model will turn a net profit or become a legal quagmire. It will be determined on a case-by-case, state-by-state issue. Connecticut is not California; federal housing laws are national, but state real property laws are unique to each state. If consumers agree to this, like the huge sums of money they borrowed without legal advice or counsel, they can. I am not their mother.

America is a free country. Every American has the right to make stupid mistakes. And we do it every day.

Reply by MonicaFL on 11/8/07 8:54am
Msg #220183

Re: Notaries Public are Public Officials in CT

You stated, in part; They can be found at every Town Clerk's office, real estate office, insurance company, law firm, doctor's office, hospital, UPS Store, FedEx Kinko's, many drug stores, etc. Let me tell you a quick story about the notaries at my bank. I was the executor of my brother's estate and had an affidavit that had to be witnessed and notarized. My brother-in-law went with me to our bank to have it notarized. The "notary" had no clue as to what was right and what was wrong. For instance, the county was wrong - I told her she needed to change the county and initial it - she said: "says who?" I said, "the Florida Notary Handbook". She said, I have never seen that!!!!!!!!! I asked her how she got her seal and she stated: Oh, the bank gets them for all of us!!!! What does this tell you? This is very scarey. I would be very, very, very apprehensive at having the notary at my bank or Kinko's, the drug store, etc. notarizing any other document of mine. I will call a notary signing agent who knows the law and pay her to notarize my documents properly.

Reply by Marlene/USNA on 11/8/07 9:37am
Msg #220190

Re: Notaries Public are Public Officials in CT

Our experience at USNA/PAN is that the majority of notaries become notaries because they have to for their jobs: banks, legal firms, government offices, hospitals, you name it. They get notary training from the person whose job they're taking, if they're lucky. When they leave that job, they also leave being a notary behind.

Some companies are diligent and give thorough job training, including the notarial aspects. Some notaries are diligent and educate themselves because they care about doing a good job no matter what the job is.

Unless some sort of notary education is mandated by the state, you often get what you pay for in free notarizations from the bank or the drugstore.

Reply by MonicaFL on 11/8/07 8:54am
Msg #220184

Re: Notaries Public are Public Officials in CT

You stated, in part; They can be found at every Town Clerk's office, real estate office, insurance company, law firm, doctor's office, hospital, UPS Store, FedEx Kinko's, many drug stores, etc. Let me tell you a quick story about the notaries at my bank. I was the executor of my brother's estate and had an affidavit that had to be witnessed and notarized. My brother-in-law went with me to our bank to have it notarized. The "notary" had no clue as to what was right and what was wrong. For instance, the county was wrong - I told her she needed to change the county and initial it - she said: "says who?" I said, "the Florida Notary Handbook". She said, I have never seen that!!!!!!!!! I asked her how she got her seal and she stated: Oh, the bank gets them for all of us!!!! What does this tell you? This is very scarey. I would be very, very, very apprehensive at having the notary at my bank or Kinko's, the drug store, etc. notarizing any other document of mine. I will call a notary signing agent who knows the law and pay her to notarize my documents properly.

Reply by MelissaCT on 11/20/07 10:25am
Msg #222128

Re: Notaries Public are Public Officials in CT

I overheard the notary at city hall town clerk's office tell a signer that she needs to see 2 forms of ID (which is correct for CT) but went on to say that a SS card is an acceptable form of ID -- obviously didn't read the manual, as that SPECIFICALLY STATES that SS Card cannot be used as ID for notarization. But, perhaps the rules are different for the notaries in the clerk's office??? I know they don't use a journal of any kind. Although journal is not required, I feel it's best practice to use one anyway.

Reply by CF on 11/8/07 8:00am
Msg #220170

Hello! I am the poster of this response. I will be the first to admit to you that I know very little of how the title industry works and only in regards to the job I do as a NSA. However, I have a business background (sales/marketing/communications degree) which I why I started my contracting business, and some other reasons too. At the very least I find LIS's response to be insulting of my profession. How in the world do they think that having a borrowers get POA's notarized at Kinko’s and UPS Store is proper? Some other responders talked about the liability of it....I think that it will come back and haunt them. My opinion- it is kind of like people getting laser eye surgery on sale only $399.00 per eye...I really don’t want a "good deal" for my vision. OK- I think that I can afford to pay full price for that service- which is much like you wrote in the link posted on this thread. Makes me wonder about how my home was searched and if I will have problems latter down the road!

I was ready to embrace the change of e-notarization; I am just looking for the right path to follow. After all the dust settles from all the initial mistakes- it will come together- that is what I think. Then we will all be ready to continue doing our jobs- you know making sure that someone taking about $100K's in loans is the person that they said they were- I know it sounds like such a low priority task: HA HA!

Reply by BrendaTx on 11/8/07 2:03pm
Msg #220253

CF - why isn't it proper?

**How in the world do they think that having a borrowers get POA's notarized at Kinko’s and UPS Store is proper?**

Signing agents aren't necessary...probably more likely to get the package signed right, but a FEDEX notary public is plenty good enough for any kind of a notarial act, loan related or not...any notary is good enough for the acknowledgment on the POA. And, yes, often they don't know how to notarize properly but it's the way that things are.

It's too bad that these people don't educate themselves, but the truth is that the world was turning with uneducated notaries handling all kinds of things long before the signing agent found a business in notarizing documents.

I just don't understand why anyone is surprised that borrowers are being sent to a notary not of LSI's choosing. Though I don't like the change in our signing agent world, change is going to come. I understand that technology is coming...I understand that we must evolve and not put all our eggs in one basket...think of ways to be useful in situations that will not be hammered by a desire to streamline and eliminate.

Somedays the refi and signing agent boom seems like the explosion of emu and ostrich ranches. The only ones who really made any money were the rahite breeders and distributors...by-products didn't take off like as hoped and so many animals bred and raised for a small market.

It's important not to take the way of the rahites and bury our heads in the sand.

Reply by CF on 11/8/07 4:07pm
Msg #220271

Re: CF - why isn't it proper?

My opinion why it is not proper for POA's to be notarized at local Kinko's is b/c there is no accountability. I can only speak from how I run my contracting business...but if there were to be an issue I sure would be able to be tracked down after the fact. Going and trying to find "Joe Bag of Doughnuts Notary" at the local Kinko's on 95th and Main Street may be challenging after the fact. It would seem that lenders/ settlement co/ title co that are going forward with e-notarization would want someone to handle their notarizations that know something about what they are doing. It is not just about notarizing a signature: it should be about having someone in the process that is skilled such as a NSA. That is just my opinion.

Reply by NCLisa on 11/8/07 5:07pm
Msg #220285

Re: CF - why isn't it proper?

It isn't about enotarization. It is about getting 1 document notarized and back to the TC so a Settlement Officer from the TC can talk to the borrower via phone or webcam, go over the docs with them, and sign the docs on the borrowers behalf. The settlement officer from LSI actually signs all the documents as AIF for the borrowers.

Personally, I wouldn't give my mother my POA, let alone a complete stranger.

Reply by BrendaTx on 11/8/07 5:22pm
Msg #220289

Re: CF - why isn't it proper?

**My opinion why it is not proper for POA's to be notarized at local Kinko's is b/c there is no accountability. **

Really? Isn't the Kinko's notary public accountable to the Secretary of State? Won't a notary public in Kinko's be bound by law to get a thumbprint, have a journal signed, etc., just like you are?

We are talking about one document that stands on its own. Signing agent isn't needed, CF. Just a plain state commissioned notary....which is, in reality all any of us are who are not regulated by some type of license requirement...such as MD.

No special training needed for that outside of your state's requirements.

Notaries really need to recognize that some lenders are going to push for the e thing and they should start expanding horizons. I am not for the e thing at all...I think it's probably going to backfire, but it is going to come....slimmer days ahead as lenders see they can cut out the $200 signing fee they pay to the signing services and send a POA to the borrower.

It would be a good idea for everyone who wants to stay in business as a mobile notary to hit the SBDC of your choice and learn how to put together a marketing plan that doesn't involve sitting in front of the computer filling out signing service forms and clicking submit.