Posted by ToniK on 3/26/13 4:18pm
Msg #463171

Ive kept quiet on this BUT

Im noticing something...I was approached by a Title company in my local area to do work for them that covers MD/DC/VA. They state that Id work as a closing agent and for settlements outside of VA, they would require I just get the signatures and their inhouse notary will notarize the signatures. The person who told me this was a RE Attorney and owner of the title company.

Just got an email from a company I do work for and in the email it states that (a particular state) notary are not to notarize the DOT, just get the initials and signatures and leave the notarial certificate blank and their in house notary will complete it.

Ummm WTH is going on with these request....if you were aware of this what would you do with this information?

Reply by A S Johnson on 3/26/13 4:23pm
Msg #463172

Forward those instructions to the SOS.

Reply by Roger_OH on 3/26/13 4:30pm
Msg #463174

I'd also advise the consumer protection folks at your state attorney general's office.

Reply by John Tennant on 3/26/13 4:41pm
Msg #463175

Forward this information to the State Attorney General. Also, as I have said before, if you have no intention of working with them ever again, expose them on NotRot so no one else (especially newbies) will end up getting in trouble.

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 3/26/13 4:45pm
Msg #463178

Hmmmm... did they not think this thing through? Did they not ever sit down at the company conference room table and ask why do Deeds need to be notarized? And what is the meaning of a notarized document? And was their answer cos docs can't record without some type of stamp on them?

Moreso, why do both insist that the closing agent (you, who is also a notary) NOT notarize at the signing? Why do they want their notary to do it later? If they're notarizing elsewhere later, send the pizza guy to get the initials and signatures.

Anyway, at least you have it in writing (or part of it). And it's not like you to me meek and quiet, Toni. Bust these guys. Send copies to whoever regulates TCs and lenders as well as whoever regulates notaries.

Reply by snowflake/PA on 3/26/13 4:48pm
Msg #463180

You might also consider reporting the attorney to the bar association/disciplinary board.

Reply by ToniK on 3/26/13 4:55pm
Msg #463183

Well the first time I was approached about it, it was during an interview process, face to face. So it would be a he said/she said type thing. So I know that would hold up in court and I didnt want to get all into the process based on what I was directly told without proof.

Now this 2nd one just came in today through email and this perked my ears up cuz its in writing. But they are request is for MD notaries and I just didnt know who and where to report this stuff too. Never had this issue.

Reply by ToniK on 3/26/13 5:00pm
Msg #463186

wouldnt hold up n/m

Reply by ToniK on 3/26/13 5:01pm
Msg #463187

Ok obviously typing and answering phones

isnt a strength of mine. lol

Reply by Donna McDaniel on 3/26/13 5:13pm
Msg #463188

Give them a chance to do the right thing?

I would inform them that it's illegal to notarize documents when the signers are not present so you will be happy to notarize at the time of the signing, you can notarize documents from other states and they must be accepted by that state.

Maybe they are confused about reciprocality between the states?

Could it just be ignorance of the law?

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 3/26/13 5:21pm
Msg #463189

Re: Give them a chance to do the right thing?

This is gangbang ignorance of the law!

In any case, t's not "illegal" in CA "to notarize docs when the signers are not present," but it is certainly illegal to have Party A (in this case, Toni) obtain signatures and then have Party B (mystery notary?) sign and stamp. I would think that would be illegal anywhere.

In CA, borrowers have to sign the CA-required notary journal; and each journal is for one notary only and must be in the notary's possession or secured somewhere at all times. So whose journal are borrowers signing in Toni's case? (if these states have journal requirements). Totally bizarre.

Reply by Yoli/CA on 3/26/13 5:31pm
Msg #463191

Robo signing comes to mind on this .... n/m

Reply by Donna McDaniel on 3/26/13 6:25pm
Msg #463199

Who said anything about journals??

GG, sometimes I think you look for reasons to go off and if you can't find one, you will just make one up.

Take a pill or something.

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 3/26/13 6:45pm
Msg #463201

Re: Who said anything about journals??

No need to get nasty, DD. Just saying that if a journal is involved, how do they expect to get around that requirement? This had nothing whatsoever to do with your post.

Reply by LisaWI on 3/26/13 5:31pm
Msg #463192

Re: Hmmmmm??

I wonder if this has to do with the same situation I just came across today with a local instate title company. He (the President who owns several branches throughout the state) would like to use remote closers so he can expand his business, but by one of his underwriters (can you say, one of the big ones, I'll give you a clue, it starts with a 'F') he is being told he has to use their Signing Service or another agency (his competition) to close the loans if they are not going to do them in-house.....so here he is, wanting to use us remote closers, does not want to use their said Signing Service, but doesnt know how to make this happen with their conditions.

Sounds like to me Toni, the said title companies that are making this request of you, are in the same boat as the gentleman above I described. If they are insuring the closing, they probably have to have one of their 'employees' close the loan.......its just a guess, but that way, they have complied with the title underwriters guidelines and expanded their business outside of the office.......

I'd be interested in discussing more on this.....I would like to help this title company learn how to use us remote closers if I can. He really does not want to use a Signing Service and would love to use our network but it sounds like they have him in a strangle hold......

Anyone else out there care to expand on this subject? It would be greatly appreciated........

Reply by ToniK on 3/26/13 5:38pm
Msg #463193

Re: Hmmmmm??

Well the First situation, Title does ALOT of Provident loans. Not sure if its a requirement, however the law is the law no matter how the lender or underwriter want it.

The second situation, was through a signing service but the request came down from Title but only cuz there were errors being made by these notaries and Title wanted to avoid the errors due to being costly to fix.

Reply by LisaWI on 3/26/13 5:44pm
Msg #463195

Re: Hmmmmm??

I agree, I would never oblige either one of these requests......kind of defeats the purpose of us in the first place.......for the first one, I wonder if it is because they are the Provident loans and they are supposed to use a closer who has the adequate E&O Insurance.....again complying with someones requirements is what it sounds like to me......just to get the loan closed.....not taking into consideration the risk you would be taking when doing something of this nature......I'll tell ya....they never cease to amaze me......

Reply by NVLSlady/VA on 3/26/13 9:59pm
Msg #463226

Underwriter and E & O: Sounds about right

<<they probably have to have one of their 'employees' close the loan.......its just a guess, but that way, they have complied with the title underwriters guidelines>>

Lisa is on to something here; I actually had a TC tell me yesterday that they only use their own notaries to close for this reason (insurance requirements). Hopefully by "close," common sense tells them to witness AND notarize! But apparently this may be too obvious??. . .

Reply by JanetK_CA on 3/27/13 2:40am
Msg #463249

Re: Underwriter and E & O: Sounds about right

Yikes!! I can't even think of the right words to describe this. It's the most ridiculous, a$$backward logic I can imagine, if this is true. Think about it... In order to be protected by insurance, they commit an intentional grossly negligent act by having a notary who never meets the signers or checks their ID be the one to stamp the docs, just because he or she is an employee? And they notarize the signature of someone who never personally appeared before them? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

I'm not saying that I don't believe this could be possible because I'd believe anything at this point. And I think there's a good possibility that explanation is right on target, sadly. I wonder what their E&O carrier would think... I suspect they'd exclude any situation that involved that type of process and they'd probably pull that tc's coverage if they knew about it - whether that's the reason for it or not.

Reply by MW/VA on 3/26/13 7:02pm
Msg #463206

Unfortunately, someone will do it. I've heard this kind of

thing goes on at the banks all the time. You can report it, of course, but the question would be if anyone really cares.

Reply by ToniK on 3/26/13 7:09pm
Msg #463208

That is true n/m

Reply by JandB on 3/26/13 7:28pm
Msg #463212

They don't need a notary to do it

The in house notary is the one doing the wrong thing and taking the risk. Let's just play devils advocate and let's say you take the assignment. All you have done is gather signatures. Do they want you to sign something saying you looked at the borrower's ID. If your signature is not on the notarization, would you be implicated if it all blows up and goes to court? Maybe so because you are, in fact, a Notary. They could hire a private citizen to get the signatures and return the package. Would that person be breaking the law? Probably not. Could claim ignorance.

Reply by BobtheElder on 3/26/13 10:51pm
Msg #463232

Re: They don't need a notary to do it

This is just another display of either criminal intent or ignorance on the part of lenders and TC that i seem to be seeing more of as well..... had a lender VP tell me I didn't need any notarial wording on a document, to just stamp it and sign... I refused and she just threw a fit... kinda made my day

The problem is nobody at any AG or SOS office seems to be interested in such behaviours.

Reply by SharonMN on 3/27/13 10:58am
Msg #463301

Re: They don't need a notary to do it

Send a letter to the Legal or Compliance Department of the Title Company alerting them of the issue. Also, if you are otherwise qualified to perform a closing out of state (e.g. in MD I think you need to be a Title Producer), consider trying to find a "garden variety" notary in that state to accompany you. You would facilitate the closing, but the notary would notarize the documents (for them, it would be GNW).

Reply by JanetK_CA on 3/27/13 4:13am
Msg #463251

Re: They don't need a notary to do it

That's all theoretically true, I suppose, but because we ARE notaries, and we know this activity to be illegal, why in the world would we want to have any part of it? You could probably argue just as theoretically, that a notary who participates in getting signatures on a document to which they know someone else will be applying a notary stamp without personal appearance, is guilty as an accessory. 'Course this isn't any legal opinion, but personally? I wouldn't want to be connected to that in any way, shape or form.

Also, some have said that the legal authorities may not care and that might be true. However, if this is an ongoing practice at a financial institution of any significance, I'd think someone would be interested. Perhaps their E&O insurance company, for one!

Reply by ReneeK_MI on 3/27/13 6:46am
Msg #463263

Talk about making no sense at all (the request, not the post

Unbelievably ignorant on so many levels. Something must be up in MD, for you to get this request from two different title agent's - or it might be that they use the same U/W and this is someone's attempt to meet a condition. Not a viable attempt, but an attempt! Are we thinking YOU are the only one hit with this request, or are there a whole lot of others out there that aren't saying anything because they're either too hungry, or still speechless?

I can't imagine lenders not catching this, either - they will SEE there are two different notaries (in the one case anyway, where it's just the DOT they want done in-house), possibly even a notary from another STATE than the borrower.

The fact that someone wrote this request in an e-mail ... would indicate to me that we're not exactly dealing with the cream of the crop here.

Maybe I'm naive, but I sure have a hard time imagining that EITHER the lender OR the title U/W is in on this game plan, and I just can't see this being pulled off too many times before someone catches this.

Reply by Ilene C. Seidel on 3/27/13 6:47am
Msg #463264

Re: Talk about making no sense at all (the request, not the post

To ask a Va notary to close Maryland loans is illegal just by the fact Md is a license state. Sounds like (to me) they are trying to avoid the license Settlement agents in Md.

Reply by ReneeK_MI on 3/27/13 6:56am
Msg #463266

Just asking for a whole lot of not fun, aren't they. n/m

Reply by JandB on 3/27/13 8:11am
Msg #463276

Report to the Commissioner of Insurance

Isn't the Commissioner of Insurance the governing body over the underwriters of insurance. Did anybody mention them in previous post (if so, I'm sorry to repeat). When I was new to VA and trying to find out if I could or could not pick up funds in VA neither the SOS nor the AG were willing to answer the question. I finally called the Commissioner of Insurance and got a clear "no." That is another discussion, I know, but I'm just saying they were willing to answer the question. If I were going to report to anybody, I would report to them.

Reply by 101livescan on 3/27/13 8:39am
Msg #463280

Wow! The nerve. SHOCKING. Well, I would be speechless. Maybe it's because I look like Mother Superior, but no one ever asks me to do anything illegal, ever. If this goes on, I don't know about it. I'm pretty sure it doesn't in my neighborhood. What would I do if I had privy to this info, well, who do you tell?

Shoot. I think I'd sit on this for a while. I gotta read the entire thread here. I did see another post earlier where a lender called the notary to verify she was the one actually notarizing the transaction. I haven't had this happen either. Is this the new trend? In my neck of the woods, I'm a pretty well known fact, for years my name comes up at the recorders office frequently as the notary of record, so I'm not about to screw up my record of superb service.

Maybe anything goes these days, heck, we got prosecuted folks running signing services, so what the hell! Next thing you know, we'll have people going to half-way houses to get their loans signed (farfetched of course). What's ethics got to do with this business, any way, heh?

Toni, I'm pretty sure the general counsel of these settlement agents would be pretty disturbed to learn of this practice. It's fraudulent, it's illegal, in California, it's a felony to coerce a notary to do illegal acts. It's litigious. Nothing right about it.

Enuf said. Not worth it. I'd rather be on the outside looking in.

BTW, I signed a purchase loan yesterday with a CA DOJ criminologist yesterday. It took over an hour. And I was not about to rush it. If you know what I mean. We dissected the hell out of this paperwork. Mother was present, no stone was left unturned. I was extremely patient. Thank goodness my next appt. ran five minutes late in arriving. I want you all to know that this person and her parents scoured this transaction, like it was an autopsy. I was a casual observer. And it was POA mother for father who was on travel.

These are the kind of people who want to know their transaction is being handled with the utmost in integrity, protocol and accuracy. It was a sizable transaction and daughter first time buyer.

How in the world do you do it any other way?

Reply by 101livescan on 3/27/13 9:01am
Msg #463283

NO CAN DO...no way. There are so many things wrong with this practice. The owner of the company is a RE Attorney? What, really? Of all people, he should know better than any one you can't do.

He's cruising for a bruising. This could result in major tsunami of lawsuits, claims, and he should not be in this business.

Turn them in. They need to understand from a higher authority what is wrong with this practice. Sounds like they are a little fish in a big pond any way. I've just had my coffee and read the entire thread here. No way I'd be able to sit on this one.

Reply by NVLSlady/VA on 3/27/13 2:57pm
Msg #463365

<<"and he should not be in this business">>

Interesting conversation I had with a VA settlement atty today (posted about on VNN) who had about as much use for mobile notaries as a hole in the head! He didn't like the idea at all and told me (very nicely) that such closings detract from the "dignity" of the whole closing process.

It's like you said, Toni "some people have been in the profession too long" . . . maybe just can't see what Integrity entails (like Cheryl posted: <<These are the kind of people who want to know their transaction is being handled with the utmost in integrity, protocol and accuracy>>). There's the answer right there. It's about the integrity of the whole transaction.

Reply by Eve/VA on 3/27/13 9:21am
Msg #463284

Tried to send you a private msg but not able to access n/m