A Notary gets dragged into court!

I love it that you guys share your stories and/or experiences with me. I feel that not only are they interesting they need to be told. They also serve to educate all of us of whats happening out here and also make us think. This is one of those stories. I was speaking with one of our long standing notaries about their renewal and some other matters which led him to tell me this story which I feel it is very important, because although through no fault of the notary we need to remember to do our jobs to the best of our ability and to always be on the lookout for fraud.
It seems that this notary had received a summons to court and had been going to trial for the past few days and he was not at all pleased. I cant believe it because as far as I know it it not that often a notary gets called into court. At least for me it is something that I don’t hear about too often.

It seems that a loan signing assignment had been given to him which he completed with no problems but it had turned out many months later that the person that had appeared before him and the person that had signed the loan documents was not the true borrower named on the documentation nor was it his property. The culprit was the son. So, I guess it is safe to say, the son desperately needed money for god knows what and had initiated a loan in his fathers name using the father’s property using his fathers name. I thought to myself “What kind of person does this”? Did the son actually think he was going to get away with it? I mean the note would possibly be changing as well and some of the other things like maybe the lender, etc. What did he think his father would not notice? DId he think he wouldn’t get caught??? or did he even care.

I guess for some folks desperate times calls for desperate measures. So now our notary had to spend precious time for which he wasn’t compensated for in court because of someone else’s crime. The notary was required to produce his journal and had to ID the son as the one who had impersonated his father.
I asked the notary how the ID looked he said it was not a fake as far as he knew. He told me that nothing was out of the ordinary. And the signing went smooth.

Now, the notary did absolutely nothing wrong in this case and it was out of his control but it got me to be thinking that sometimes we can become too comfortable in our job and our duties.. So the moral of this story is that we need to be paying attention at all times because there there is always somebody out here trying to pull a fast one….check those id’s carefully and document everything in your journal. And if your state doesn’t require you to keep a journal then you should. It may save you a whole lot of trouble if a ‘situation’ should ever arrive. The notary had his journal and all of the proof that he needed so he was in the clear.

Be Safe

Carmen

Death and The Notary

I have heard that it it best to get some things done sooner rather than later but this one takes it to another level….

Some borrowers won’t let even a death in the family stop them from a refinance transaction. I had a notary that received a job from one of his trusty signing companies. He confirmed everything and prepared his documents. On the day of the signing he received a last minute call stating that the borrower had a death in the family but they were going to proceed with the closing at the agreed upon time.

So, our notary arrived at the house as scheduled not only to find that there indeed was a death; the female borrower had sadly lost her mother. It was apparent that she was distraught and he could see that she had been crying, but she insisted that she wanted to proceed anyway. So our notary pulled out the tools of the trade and got ID’s logged in and proceeded to start to pass the docs down the assembly line for signature and initials. However about ever two or so docs the door bell would ring a family member and/or friend would start to come bearing food, gifts of condolence. So as the visitors would come the female borrower would stop the signing and get up go to the door greet her quests as they came to pay their respects. They would offer their sympathy and condolences and then tears would begin to flow again. ANd she would come back to the signing table and begin to sign again. Needless to say this went on for over two hours. Boy, all I can say is the signing agent on this one was a trooper. It seems that the motivator for this borrower to sign no matter what was a 30 year fixed at 3.8 or so. I guess who could blame her. Life does goes on….

So It seems a great interest rate no matter what the circumstances (good or bad) will never stop some borrowers from signing loan docs.

Until next time!

Be safe!