Mobile Notary Resources

What is a mobile notary?
A mobile notary is a notary public who is mobile and travels to clients. Typically a mobile notary goes to anywhere from one to eight places per day and notarize a single signature, or do a loan signing at any particular stop. A mobile notary may charge the regular fee that notaries may charge in their state plus a travel fee. There are no legal regulations regarding travel fees in most states. Please check your state's page on http://www.123notary.com/find-a-notary-public.asp to see if your state has a travel fee limit. In California, many mobile notaries charge $30 for travel plus $10 per signature for example. Sometimes they charge extra for excessive waiting time. Sometimes they give clients a price break if the number of signatures is large. Some notaries only do local calls within several miles of their place of business or residence. Others often travel more than 50 miles on the average job. It depends on what kind of clients you have.

What can a mobile notary charge?
A mobile notary can charge (a) a travel fee, (b) notary fees, (c) waiting fees if there is excessive waiting such as for hospital and jail notarizations, (d) occasionally there are some copying fees, (e) if the notary is authorized, there might be document preparation fees, and (f) Late night extra fees are charged by many companies as well. The price can be prohibitive in many cases. State regulated notary fees differ from state to state. Six states have restrictions to what a notary can charge as a travel fee. Please visit http://www.123notary.com/find-a-notary-public.asp to find out what the fee limits are for notarizations and travel.

How do I become a mobile notary?
To become a mobile notary, you must first become a commissioned notary public in your state.
www.becomeanotary.us sells courses to become a notary public in California and New York State. Once you become a notary, then it is very prudent to learn how to be a good mobile notary and loan signer. Most of the jobs available to mobile notaries are loan signings which usually take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half to complete. Please visit http://www.123notary.com/loansign.htm to find a loan signing course that is right for you. Our LS#3 combo is the most thorough and most popular combo. All of our combo's include a thorough marketing section.

I am already a mobile notary, but want to do even better.
The 123notary.com marketing combo which is an excellent resource for mobile notaries to enhance their marketing skills to attract more business. The marketing combo also includes a special list of approved signing companies. It is tricky to find reliable signing companies to work for. Free lists of signing companies are plastered all over the internet, but they generally don't have contact information, do not specify if the companies are still in business, and definitely don't limit the members on the list to top notch companies. Our list only has the best companies to work for that have a good payment history.

Where do mobile notaries travel to?
It depends on who the clients are. 80% of the volume of mobile notary work is loan signing. In a loan signing you would travel to the borrower's home perhaps and sign on the dining room table. Sometimes, borrowers prefer to sign at a restaurant if their house is undergoing repairs or for various other reasons. Occasionally the borrowers prefer to sign at work. There is always plenty of business notarizing documents at hospitals. People in hospitals frequently need powers of attorney notarized as well as property deeds. Hospital signings can take a long time and notaries may experience a variety of problems doing this kind of service. People in jails also need notaries for powers of attorney and property deeds. Offices who don't have a notary in their staff can be regular customers of a mobile notary. Mobile notaries go to a variety of places.

Why become a mobile notary?
Being a mobile notary is a way to:
a. Make a nice income.
b. Maintain a flexible schedule.
c. Maintain your autonomy.
d. Be on the road several hours a day. Full time mobile notaries make anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000 per year. The majority probably make around $50,000 per year. You can take a vacation anytime you want. But, if your customers sense that you are not there for them, they might go elsewhere. You can accept jobs early in the morning if you are an early bird. Or, late at night if you are a night owl. You can choose to work weekends if you like. You can set your own prices. If you don't like to do jobs on Saturday, you can charge double. Perhaps somebody will pay, you never know. Mobile notaries drive a lot and talk on cell phones a lot. If you enjoy these two activities, you may have found the career for you.

What is it like being a mobile notary?
If you enjoy driving and being on a cell phone a lot, you will like this job. Like other business there are good days and days where things get messed up. Your ability and grace at preventing and solving screw-ups is your key to success in this business. Generally, if you want to keep your clients, you have to be very access able by phone and very quick and responsive when it comes down to communicating and getting things done. This is a very time sensitive industry. There is no room for procrastination or negligence. If you do loan signing, the beginnings of months can have little or no business, while the ends of months can have overwhelming quantities of work. Learning how to coordinate and balance your work load is a must.

What do mobile notaries make?
A full time mobile notary can make anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000 per year, but it really varies according to experience, luck, location, and how the industry is going at any point in time.

What are the best ways to market my services?
The best ways to market a mobile notary service are to (a) advertise on internet directories, (b) have your own website, (c) market to local convalescent homes, jails, bail bonds businesses, (d) local physical yellow pages, and (e) Title companies that are within an hour and a quarter of your house.

The most popular internet directories in 2008 are: 123notary.com, notary rotary, and signingagent.com. Talk to notaries on each of these sites to see where they say the majority of their business comes from to get an unbiased opinion.

Having your own website is costly and requires a lot of quality design work. However, if you are serious about the mobile notary business, the website will give your business a professional image which will help you capture a larger client base and make a great impression.

Marketing to local businesses with flyers and business cards can be very effective. Convalescent homes are the single best place to advertise. You can read details about these marketing methods in the marketing section of any of our loan signing combo's on http://www.123notary.com/loansign.html.

Physical yellow pages could be a source of a lot of new clients, however, choosing the right size ad in the right part of the right area's yellow pages is an art form. Our marketing section has very detailed information about optimizing your yellow page marketing campaign.

Title companies are an excellent source of work. They pay well and they pay quickly. Title companies can be found on internet yellow pages.

How do I learn loan signing?
Loan signing constitutes the majority of mobile notary work. You need to study for several weeks to do loan signing. http://www.123notary.com/loansign.html is where we sell our loan signing courses. It is a very good idea to get certified as a loan signer by whichever website you advertise on. Certified notaries command respect and are by default, more knowledgeable than uncertified ones.

What is a loan signing like?
A typical signing involves getting a phone call form a signing company. They will want to know your experience and if you are available to go to a particular destination at a designated time. If they feel confident about your abilities and you are available, you will most likely be assigned the job. The signing company will fax you an order confirmation. Then, if requested, you call the borrower, introduce yourself, and confirm the appointment. The signing company will either overnight the documents to you or send you electronic documents which you would need to print. Then, you drive to your appointment at the appointed time, park on the street, introduce yourself, and find a place to sign the documents. A good signing agent will be able to introduce all of the documents and describe each one's salient features. However, a signing agent must NOT explain the specifics of the loan, nor can they answer any specific questions about their particular loan. A notary also must NOT do anything that resembles giving legal advice.

The notary must make sure that all forms that are to be notarized, get notarized. The notary must make sure that all forms that require a signature are signed with the indicated name. Other forms need to be initialed. Once the signing is complete, the notary must make sure the loan package gets overnighted to the designated address, or in some cases, the notary is responsible for hand delivering the package to the lender or title company.

Don't make any changes to the documents and NEVER use white-out. If the name on the documents is incorrect ( which is a common problem ), discuss that with the lender. Generally, the name variation used, should be the same as what is on the Title document ( the Deed ). If the signer signs using a different name variation, have them initial below the typed name and sign the way the lender instructed them to sign. Any unauthorized name variations used in signatures can cause the loan to be rejected which could result in having to redraw documents and the notary might not get paid either in such a case.

What should be done if there is a problem at the signing?
All questions other than basic questions about what information is in which document must be referred to the lender. If a borrower doesn't want to sign a particular document, call the lender. If the lender is not there, refer the borrower to the right to cancel and inform them that they have three days to cancel the loan, and that they can contact the lender the following day.

What are some of the pitfalls of loan signing?
Getting paid is a problem for some notaries. Many of the companies out there are not financially sound and can be cash poor. Its good to know all the techniques of screening companies and getting paid. Please visit http://www.123notary.com/resource.htm and read our page about getting paid for tried and true foolproof advice from the experts.

Where can I ask questions about loan signing?
If you are a shy novice and want to ask a few questions and get some great feedback, please visit http://www.123notary.com/forum.htm and you can learn more than you bargained for. 123notary.com's forum has a wealth of information for new signers, and information about many loan signing companies, state notary laws, technical information, and much more.

What other resources should I know about?
123notary.com has an extensive glossary that can really help you learn your terminology. We also have a free list of signing companies that can really help you know who to work for and who to stay away from. The BBB is another great organization that can help you get unbiased information about particular companies.

How do I build up my clientele for loan signings?
A signing agent needs to get on as many databases in as many companies as possible. Getting on a database is one point, but getting them to use you regularly is another point. Keep a list of companies who you are registered with. You can call them from time to time and mention you are available for work anywhere. If you do good work and are generally available and answer your phone, you will get picked frequently.

How do I get the most of my listing on 123notary.com?
Please visit http://www.123notary.com/signing-agents-listing-tips.htm to learn how to get the most out of your listing on 123notary.com. There is a long list of tried and true, easy to implement suggestions there.

What's new that is important?
One hot topic these days is Reverse Mortgages. It requires knowledge above and beyond what is necessary to do a regular loan signing to sign Reverse Mortgages. There are courses available on the internet on this topic. Electronic notarizations is another up and coming field that is very slowly gaining popularity. 2008 might be slightly premature to get the equipment and knowledge for electronic notarizations, but 2009 might be a good way to get in the game early enough so you become the most experienced in your area.