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Notarize initial radio

started here guys welcome to the Tuesday notary Titans call for Tuesday July 16th I'm here with Laura Biewer Laura hi I see you are on line hello you are needed though so we can't hear you welcome thank you for spending your time with this alright actually everybody against you guys on you you there you go got some background noise there okay welcome thank you your website is coach me Laura calm and Laura thank you for so much of your time and energy with us today I am here but I'm apologize I'm not gonna turn my camera on today and my and my mic might go off and on I have three students brand-new who have their first signings this morning so I expect my phone may ring and I and I have to be able to jump on to it because that takes priority and I apologize yeah no problem with all awesome I love that well thank you for being here thank you for making the time with us alright you got it you figured it out yay oh and in Korea obviously is the founder of notary to pro and Carol congratulations on celebrating your 10 year anniversary this last week that was huge oh it was so much fun I got to meet so many students they came from all over the place and you know well I never really meet face to face and we had a really good time and Laura was there it was really nice we enjoyed our time together so yeah turned out good awesome well since you're talking about that you want to share something that you're excited about this week put me on the spot every week yeah well just just the way things are going I'm excited about some things that are going on my personally and my family and I'm very excited with the way notary to pro is going we're getting we're just getting some cool great students and and the reputations they're building and I'm very excited about that so it just goes on sometimes there's not any particular highlights but but just everyday just thrilled about life I love it things come on at the same time of course pushing towards notary symposium which is very exciting I'm sure by now everybody on the call has heard me talk about this it's coming up in the fall October 5th Southern California November 16th for Northern California we've got our speakers lined up we've got our topic set we have vendors or exhibitors coming it's gonna be an exciting day for everybody involved so if you have not there's still room I got a call last night and she said oh I heard it was sold out and I couldn't get a ticket that is not true I wish it was already sold out but it's not yet but we are over halfway there so if that's something you're considering you might want to get in there on that early bird pricing and get yourself a seat the other thing I'm excited about and it'll be discussed further later is I have another skill builder coming and I love doing those so you'll hear more about that coming so those are my exciting pieces today yeah that's huge and I typed in the website to know the recent podium guys in the chat window if you're interested in exploring that and giving your tickets confirmed thank you for that by the way Laura I'm excited to go to both of those this year and then for me you know I think the challenge working with optimists that are so excited about life is there's always some really good stuff and there's almost two good things to really cram into a one second or minute description but I've got a lot of stuff that I'm excited about too but I'm just gonna focus on the one coming up tomorrow morning that is with Melissa Johnson Eldridge out of Texas she's kind of the emerging expert in the notary and remote online notarization training and platforms she's willing to join us for a live training call on the actual platform so I've got the face book of that on the sign and thrive public page so if you're interested in that course I'll send out the link in the email too so you can join this live no registration required you just pop in and kind of see with all the technologies about regret surrounding your on eye and without further ado why not me jump in here and get started the way that today will kind of work is we got some really great questions but I'm gonna flip things around we're gonna put Laura first this time because I held out to the very end last week and we didn't get a chance to hear a great presentation so make sure that you guys get a chance to see this Laura is talking about risky documents for today's mobile notaries all right you wanna take it away yeah I will first of all I'm excited to say I see 93 people done already in the first five minutes of call so that's pretty exciting to have that many people join us this morning and this is similar to a skill builder think of it as a mini one I just wanted to target some documents that specifically are more risky than any others that we may handle and some special considerations that many of us I'm sure are already giving but I want to make sure especially newer notaries are understanding some of the risks involved with documents so let me go to my share and let's see I can get this puppy up and slide show and I want it from the beginning all right is everybody looking at a PowerPoint bill could you mute yourself and tell me okay great very good so I say it and it changed pages for you perfect all right so let's talk about what our risky document I'm specifically targeting all kinds of deeds as well as all kinds of powers of attorney and healthcare directives out of all the documents that I know the rice for the public and this is more concerning what we would call general no we work then the framework of loan signings within the framework of loan signings you know there's a vetting process everything but the kitchen sink has been looked at before I ever get there so it's it's a little more safe and there are a lot of people involved before I step in when you're handling general notary work its you you're the one who gets the call you're talking directly to somebody with arranging that appointment ain't going to see them and handling the documents so if that falls a little more responsibility to be clear and comfortable that this is definitely a document that they want to sign and they have an idea of what they're signing I'm not saying we explain documents but think of it like in long sightings where we present documents so get educated about these particular documents I did do a skill builder on powers of attorney I haven't done one on deeds I may consider that but go out and Google examples of these documents to make sure you know what they look like and what are some of the things that are required to be filled out and where the signatures are and whose signatures be notarized because you may have multiple signatures going on you may have principal signer you may have the agent who they're naming and you may have witnesses so that's a lot of signatures going on and whose signature am I supposed to be notarizing understand the purpose of what a deed does basically conveyance of real property somebody the Grand Tour is giving up their rights to whoever the grantee is gonna be and it could be as easy as a quitclaim deed where they're fixing a misspelling of their name or they're adding their spouse so it's from themselves back to themselves and the spouse or to themselves with a corrected spelling it could be from themselves as people to the trust and they're now gonna be the trustees those are a little bit more easy and straightforward to see what's going on there the others where it's a transfer upon death deed and in that case the the owner is saying look I'm gonna live here till the end of my days but as soon as I pass away it automatically goes in the ownership of my whoever my children my niece whoever it is and this is a way for somebody to protect their main asset their home when they don't really have any other assets so they don't really need a trust to spend the money in a trust now that's not all States California has that and there are a few others that have that and that's a wafer for a person to protect their home when they don't want to spend the money on the trust but they want to make sure their home doesn't land in probate and then there's the other comedies the grant deeds that we probably see and quit claim deeds and our loan signings as a general notary I get a lot of quick claim deeds where it's being signed off to the children adult children or to siblings of the owner and of course it's family so you're thinking okay that sounds good but that's not always good and the owner may or may not really know what it is they're signing powers of attorney this is about renting the power of your signature sharing your signature allowing somebody else to represent you in decision-making it doesn't mean you give up your rights to make decisions or sign documents but it does mean somebody else to be signing documents or making decisions on your behalf and so when you give up give your rights decision-making and signature to somebody else when you're gonna give your property to somebody else these are the two biggest concerns when it comes to any kind of financial abuse whether it's elderly which is more common or anybody so let's see if my well it doesn't want to go my down button doesn't want to let me move forward why not why don't you want me to do that you click just click the PowerPoint with your mouse sometimes the mouse but presenters screen doesn't say next oh yeah alright alright I'll do it that way okay so first of all assessment is like the big key to all of this is to be prepared to start assessing from the call you get who's the signer is the signer than when you're talking to if you're not talking to the signer and it's somebody else saying yeah I want to go to power of attorney on my mother or she's gonna sign off her property of me that's a red flag it doesn't mean there's any abuse going on yet it just means I may need to ask more questions about why isn't the mom talking to me what's going on there um it's my signer alert aware some of that I'll discover on the call but a lot of times it's not the signer on the call it is a family member or caregiver or friend and so now I'm having to ask them you know can they communicate directly with me in my language they're not confused at least not confused at the time they're with me these are things that I'm going to share if it's not the caller that I will investigate when I'm there further that I need to be confident that they are alert aware and they can communicate with me and I confident that they're voluntarily signing the document and it's important to know that there are a lot of states as a matter of fact the majority of states do not have code to tell you how to do this or what the requirement is but there are some there's a handful of states that actually require the notary to verify what I would call competency you know alertness and awareness I'm gonna just pick one state today other than California where I know that they have specific statutes and it's Florida so if you're on the call in your Florida you may not take the acknowledgement or administer an oath to a person where you actually know there's either they've been adjudicated mentally incapacitated by a court meaning now they're conserved or where you just happen to the person appears that they're mentally incapable of understanding the nature and effect of the document at the time here with them or they don't speak your language and unless the document has been translated they're looking at two versions and your language version the English and then a secondary translated version so that they can read what it is they're signing and so particularly Spanish is probably the biggest one probably for Florida and for California so there are specific code in the state of Florida that gives you a little more guidance where you actually have knowledge or you actually observe a state of unawareness and sometimes that state of an awareness is temporary it might be a fixable situation maybe they took a medication in that case it might be rescheduling is the answer other times it's a more permanent type of situation and you may have to make other decisions can the principal sign their name unassisted us if I don't ask that question I end up getting they're finding out they're gonna have to do a signature by mark which is not a big deal I know how to handle that but that requires witnesses and if you're at a facility you may or may not find anybody because staff will do it and so then you gotta hunt down somebody that can provide that do they have the valid photo ID now two issues there you're at a facility and they don't have it there or the other issue is yeah I've got it but it expired ten years ago and I find very commonly especially the older we get when we get to that point where we can't drive anymore that's the last license we hold on to and we think it's good for ever for ID we know we can't drive with it but we've got a card they don't understand an authorization it doesn't work that way so I have to verify the word valid current something for them to understand not the last one you got ten ten years ago I need the most current one you've got and know your Social Security card isn't gonna cut it for me I need you know government-issued photo ID whatever your while requires and then I happen to have knowledge about powers of attorney in particular so I know that if I'm doing a financial one in California I need some witnesses so then I'm gonna ask about that you know GG can you get some neighbors or somebody to pop over for five minutes to watch you science this is a very important item for a notary not just because of blank spaces but because they are added protection for you the more eyeballs going on the more people who are observing the situation the the better it is should something go wrong later you're not the only one who was they're the only one that's why I don't like to be a witness and a notary if you're in a state where that's allowed I want extra ears extra eyeballs going on to protect me if I'm the only one saying yeah they were fine then it's my word sitting in a court of law and nobody's supporting me but if I can say and I had two witnesses there and you know we consulted that everything was good now you got three people saying it so I think that's a really important consideration all right oh no way it hurts working so I did all this assessment up front then I get to the appointment guess what assessment continues when you get there because the circumstance is not what they described right yes they got ID but it's ten years ago yes they're alert aware of it not right now yes at the documents all complete oh I decided to wait you got here to make sure it's right right so things are not going to be as they were described as matter of fact most times they are minimized on the phone because they want to get you there right if they tell you on the phone yeah I don't know if they're gonna make it I don't know if they're alert aware today maybe you're gonna have notary say well then I'm not coming because they don't want to have to deal with that so always reassess when you get there that what was presented to you is what's really happening if the signer appears medicated sedated confused reluctant to sign at the time you're with them that's all that matters you might only have ten minutes with them during that ten minutes are they able to keep themselves oriented and alert and realize that you're the notary and you're there for a purpose and they're signing a document ten minutes isn't long but if they can't stay oriented that long that is an issue for me and again I need to find out why this is a fixable problem or is this not it's the sign of communicating with me the notary not through the family member so yesterday I had a call it was going to be a very difficult signing by the time the whole story was done I really felt bad for the family I really got the situation and the father is paralyzed from a stroke he's got it going on up here but he can't communicate it well it's slurred he does a lot of blinking with his eyes he's able to communicate with his daughter and I said well but what about me I can't have him blinking his eyes at you and then you tell me what that means that's not gonna work for me can he answer my questions by blinking his eyes in a way that I feel those are not involuntary movement but actually responses and so it was probably a good half an hour of screaming and talking about what if this one of that what do you got so finally I say okay I'll come I don't know if we'll make this happen but let's be prepared for signature by mark let's be prepared with witnesses let's be prepared with all these things so then about I wasn't gonna go for a couple of hours she called me back oh when she had told me and the doctor says the neurologist has documented he is still able to make his own decisions and communicate his own will he has it going on up here he just can't get it out here so I'm thinking okay we've got some documentation let me see if I can make this work I get a call maybe a half an hour so before the appointment and she called back and said his primary has written an order that says he's no longer able to make decisions for himself or communicate for himself he needs to be represented that was the end of that appointment I didn't even get out there fortunately she went there ahead of time to be ready with all this stuff and found out that he had been seen and this is now the story so there was just no reason for me to come at that point so these are things that I would have to ask as well I do ask is there any order any court order are you conserved you have a conservator somebody who's doing that already for you another question I might ask is do you already have a power of attorney because that's a red flag if they've got a trust and there's a power of attorney in that trust everything's pretty much been set up for them now somebody's coming along and says oh I need a power of attorney and now they're gonna name themselves as the attorney in fact when it was somebody else back in the trust to me that's a red flag there's inconsistency going on there there might have been a specific reason why the parents chose certain children over the others or siblings over the others to make medical decisions versus financial decisions and based on of beneficiary requirements so but I look for anything that's inconsistent and then I start investigating that now does that make me a nosy notary sometimes I can see like why do you need to know this you're just there to certify the signature get on with it I will not be bullied or pushed in these situations with these documents and I do let them know in the case of a power of attorney I am going to pursue this a little more than I would if it was just renew his pension so I can keep he keep getting that automatic deposit I don't really have so much issue with that I have issues where rights are being transferred or properties being transferred was the document already signed so this happened to me maybe two weeks ago I went to the hospital he was in the ICU documents all prepared difficult signing had to grunt and slur but actually he was very good I could understand him I felt confident that he was answering my questions correctly so when I got to the last page I see it's already been signed it's not it's kind of sloppy but I see it's done and he's got some paralysis on one side of his body I turned the page around to him to show him and I point at the signature and I say did you sign this document because that's what I have to do even for an acknowledgement if I didn't watch it I have to ask did you sign this document and he told me no he did not sign that document okay so then I wanted to make sure he was still understanding me so I see this is your name signed here did maybe earlier today maybe you signed it maybe your daughter presented it to you there were two daughters there no he was adamant absolutely not he did not sign this document yet so I looked at the daughters and I said look there are two ways to go one is he's gonna sign it now in front of me so let me change the question do you want to sign this document and he said no he did not want to sign the document his first time it ever happened to me almost all the time they say yeah I signed it yes I wanted to sign it not this time no now the daughters are talking to each other and it seems he has either a caregiver or he has a girlfriend or somebody that he wants to be appointed not the daughters okay guess what happened with that appointment end of the appointment I was there a good 15 20 minutes getting through the interview only to find out one this is not gonna happen and to whose side the document now it wasn't my business to really pursue well I want to know who signed the document they both said you know what Dad you want to leave it how it is now that's fine they tore up the document that was the end of it but I'm just saying if you don't ask the question especially with somebody who might be compromised in that way and they're limited in their communication you need to pursue it otherwise who knows what's happening one other story like that but it went the other way had a guy he spoke to me just fine no issues his document was signed it was all filled out I said this is a power of attorney it means that your daughter who's been named can sign your name to documents any kind of business documents okay and he said yes I already know she explained it to me I'm good with it I said I see it's already sight did you sign this and he said yes we did it this morning yeah and he was in his recliner and I thought okay I mean really it was a smooth signing he had ID great so I take care of the business and then within three days a different daughter calls me she doesn't know I'm the notary she's just calling unknown tree and says my sister had my dad signed this financial power of attorney three or four days ago and then she went to his bank account and took out a hundred thousand dollars and put it in her own account and he did not want a power of attorney he can make his own decisions he doesn't need any of this we want to revoke it and of course I'm feeling bad because I was the notary and I thought everything looked good I said let me come today and when I got there I knew as soon as I got to the address I knew it was me I go there and I say look I was that notary this is my stamp you just happen to get me again all we have to do is a relocation create that document on your computer he can revoke it tell your sister she's not it there you go well reverse it so get it done fabulous I feel better and he's he's in bed this time but he's sitting up and he's still pretty communicative great get home the next day I have a voicemail from the first sister who says did you know my dad's dying of brain cancer he's on morphine and he had a major stroke after you left that first time and now and now we can't even talk or recognize anybody and my sister undid the documents at her let me help him obviously I'm in the middle of something nasty here so I saved that voicemail she went on and on she was horrible and I talked to him if he had a stroke for say he recovered pretty well because I saw no evidence and if he was on morphine wow he was high-functioning because I had no clue that that was going on so obviously what was really happening is she got caught and now she's trying to back peddle what's going on here I get called out a third time to the same guy this is all within a week this time I bring an attorney with me friend of Mines an attorney elder law and I said Joyce I want you to interview this guy to see because I'm being told he was had a stroke he's on morphine and now I'm worried maybe I'm not interviewing well so she comes in gets rid of everybody and sure enough she talks to him for 15 minutes I'm in there making notes and the guy is on top of it he knows exactly what he wants I don't know if he was on any kind of pain medication but he had no no signs of that so the attorney creates an affidavit that says these are my wishes I want this that the other thing and he signs it and I notarize it and she's the witness to it he died the next day a month later guess who's getting called in for deposition mm-hmm so I get called in the attorney gets called in the first daughter who of course stole all that money and they stopped everything else finally they we were able to stop so that's all she got and they start making it sound like I'm the one that was the problem here and that I should have never come back and that I should have realized what kind of state he was in and don't I know the effects of morphine and blah blah blah blah I mean it was pretty bad but I forgot an hour and a half of me continuing to say this is what I observed here are the notes in my journal they wanted a copy of what I had here here was my procedure and they said well you brought an attorney in that tells me you thought he was a competent I said no all I did was look for an additional confirmation of what I already believed that he was competent so it was done and that was the end of the lawsuit they couldn't go anywhere with it thank goodness but I'm just telling you these things can go sideways so fast no matter how good a notary you are you to watch all right oh is it are they not familiar with it so some people you might say power of attorney and they're embarrassed to tell you they don't know what that is right you're at their home their website so this is a document where you name somebody to take care of your business who might you name to do that oh I would want someone so might my daughter and if they don't say the relationship I ask for what is she to you that's my daughter great and then so do you understand that means they could write checks and they can talk to the mid-40s to make sure they understand what a power of attorney can do the effect of a power of attorney in general not for them specifically but in general because I want to make sure that that the title of the document and with these kinds of people are not confusing so I take a moment for that yes great they're familiar with it some red flags and I watch out for a family member a caregiver seems to be in a hurry to get it done and they're kind of pushing things along the signers reluctant to sign the signers language is second to your own so for instance I do handle general work in Spanish I am conversational I can speak enough to to get through the appointment but I cannot explain documents I wouldn't even if they were in English so if if they're having a document like a deed that's in English they might speak to me in English broken English it doesn't mean they know how to read the document because there are two different skill sets conversation is not the same as reading so do they need do they need to see this in their language I would just ask you do you want to see this in your language before you sign it they say no I I get it great I'm not there to push them I just want to make sure we're not stepping out of line but when the caregivers the attorney-in-fact and there's no successor I'm worried about that so your caregivers going to get everything gonna get your property whatever I'm I'm concerned you don't have any children this is a number one area of elder abuse is with caregivers who been trusted who have been taking care of them for the last five years or ten years maybe their children are far away I have I have concerns it isn't necessarily mean that there the caregiver is plenty to steal anything it's just not a good situation I always ask would you like an attorney I have elder law attorney that I am connected with I'm on the board for the senior advocacy project in Modesto and Stanislaus County so I do have those connections to just verify this is a good situation if there's tension and arguments between the people in the room it's happened to me I went to a hospital the son well like the son had been gone for years and years and years and now he shows up out of the blue and he wants to be the attorney in fact and he's got the documents ready to go and the poor guy he's the patient in the bed he's not quite sure what's happening and why is this happening because he's got a lady companion for the last 20 years out there he's been helping him and he doesn't feel like he needs any help right now but the son is insistent she is not your wife I am the person who should be doing it in any case I had to kick them all out of the room and talk with him and when I talked with him privately and there was nobody in the room he said I don't want to sign this I'm happy with the way things are she's helping me I don't need he's they gone from five or ten years however long it was um I don't even know why he's back so I said okay you know what let me just leave this document with you I would like you to take a look at it when you're feeling more up to it and if you decide that this is the right thing for you no matter who you went to a point here's my card call me back I'll come take care of you then I walked out to the nurse's station and I let them know what was going on I told the family I'm not notarizing anything today he's in no condition to do so and then I went to the nurse's station and I were as potential not that anything was happening yet but the potential and I was concerned they might call another notary in who may not be as diligent to check it out and I wanted them to be aware of it in case ApS had to be you know called out make sure you assume control start to finish it can just unravel and everybody's talking over everybody and you're just standing there in the room don't be a bystander you're in charge this is all about what you're doing with that signer so ask them not to interfere with your communications or ask them to leave the room if it looks like the signers reluctant to speak to you directly because they're all standing there I don't kick them all out at first I just let them know look this is between me and the signer if you want to observe stand back and I don't want you asking questions I don't want you offering the answers everything needs to be between me and my signer if there's witnesses needed don't don't be both be a notary let them get witnesses if they're gonna use family most states a witness can be family remember the rule is impartial it's not a best practice to use family I will tell you that I don't recommend it but sometimes that's all there is and then I only present the important elements like you would present a note that says you know I'm pointing out on your CD here's your interest rate here's the years here's your payment you know I would point out this is the person you're gonna share the power of your signature with I might ask them if I haven't already and that person is what to you oh it's my son my disc's okay great and what kinds of business did you want them to handle because I see a list and they're going to they're usually initially all of the above so I say okay did you look at all of these everything is good yes no whatever I don't if I get the answers I'm looking for I don't go further but if I get confusion there if I say oh no all they're gonna be doing for me is they're gonna be taking care of paying the rent or talking to the about that sometimes my concerns I look for help if I'm in a facility I might be staff the charge nurse or the nurse's station asking for orders or their orders you don't tell me what's wrong with them but is there any reason they shouldn't be signing a document if you're in a long-term care facility which is also known as a skilled facility and it's a health care directive Ombudsman that's what they're there to do is to make sure that they are capable of understanding what this document means that somebody else can speak for them when they can't regarding their health care their medical situation in all aspects if you have issues that are fixable reschedule it's a business decision to decide am I going to charge them for the for the travel or not that's your business decision but I think it's always a good decision that if you're not confident that this is a going to be a good notarization reschedule that if there's no witnesses and witnesses are needed yeah I think you need witnesses to put them in your journal and you know in the additional information so that if you get called back you can say oh here are some other people that I documented that we're there also observing these things sometimes your signer or the document is just disqualified and it's a good reason to to reschedule which is the document is not complete and they're not sure what to do or the signer doesn't have the ID and now they got to get credible witnesses they can't just get anybody in the hospital it has to be people who know now so now I'm going to you know look at can I come back if it's a fixable issue and sometimes I just have to say no and that's difficult and family right away is gonna say well then what am I supposed to do well they could be I would tell them to seek legal advice I do have attorneys that I can refer them to but if you don't that might be something you start thinking about building relationships with family law attorneys or other attorneys who or elder law that would be another specialty who might be able to help them go over the right way it may or may not require conservatorship there may be other legal vehicles to help them but I'm not an attorney so I don't know what they are protect yourself a couple ways one is make sure you document in the additional information or note section if you have witnesses if you did screening who is the agent that they named if there were special circumstances such as signatures situation or language barriers anything that will help you should you ever be called to testify about why you did what you did and who was there and what happened the better you are at doing these things with these documents the less often that you're going to be called in the first place and when you aren't called the better protected you're going to be as a notary and this is a real issue in the general notary world so if you mostly do loan signings and you're just thinking about getting over in this area make sure you're you're armed and prepared to protect yourself and to protect your signers and that's what I wanted to present today I'm gonna stop sharing they all come back yeah I'm here and thank you that was you know one thing that I love about working with you Laura is your quick little presentation was super in-depth and really awesome and eye-opening first on me the action are ABC on here so I have there are a few questions that are something about that presentation I'd love to jump into before we do that why we have everybody here I'd also like to tell them about your there we go the how to notarized adoption paperwork right that's right about coming up in August this is another navigating an entire process and you're going to be sharing that with us August 10th August 10th we're going to take a look at the adoption process and the notary's role in that what are the documents that were asked to notarize how many different places might we be asked to go I you know I go to doctors appointments CPA appointments employer appointments the home there's lots of places I'm asked to travel lots of different documents I'm asked to notarize duplicate triplicate there's our past II work so it's a whole nother like trust it's another oral specialty I hate the words general notary work because really it's just a lot of different specialties and if you can prepare yourself to know what they're about you can get enough on that yeah so I just posted the link guys that one requires registration but it's completely free yeah it's going to be another 20 minute presentation which means we'll probably be there for about an hour with some awesome Q&A because this is a pretty in-depth process too so I'm excited about it and it's one of those niche adoption paperwork where you actually get to use the embosser which is why I became a notary in the first place so I'm real excited to learn about that as well so let's I posted the link to register for the how to know the rise adoption paperwork in the chat window but now let's dive in and talk about some of these questions here okay okay so what kind of questions do you ask to test the competency of assignment is there anything outside of the logistics of the signing itself most of it is common conversation you would engage with somebody so I don't say who's the president but I would talk about the weather to see if they're consistent with what the weather is I would talk about why I'm there to see the response to that I would ask oh who's this lovely person right here and see if they can tell me the relationship from themselves to other people in the room so one of the things that an elder law attorney taught me was that do they know who they are do they know who they are in relationship to other people do they know what they have right so those are like the three things I look for and again not testing competency what I am looking for is there are alert aware enough to understand they're signing a document that's going to do something right that's what I'm looking for Deborah asked a great question about what happens whether when there's a power of attorney out there and the originals already been signed and notarized and now it's getting really one's supposed to know about the first PLA and then it's been cancelled or revoked and right right and so the thing is is part of the instructions on a revocation is that the previous attorney in fact people must be notified either by certified mail or hand delivery they must get notification and of course if it's a health care you want to take that back to your Senate to your doctor's office so the most current one is on file you know the revocation and then the new one on it unfortunately it's not required by law to do that so there are people that just keep doing newer ones and if the document doesn't have a clause for revocation built in it that says this supersedes everything before now you can have multiple powers of attorney and everybody saying I'm in charge and then you start now it's a legal battle hmm Joanne that's a good question about witnesses if you're just getting some random person to be the witness how would you ever get a hold of that same person to be called into a court to validate their witnessing so when you write down their name you can write down a phone number mostly when I write down the names I'm not so concerned that they will be called in to testify although that could happen I'm mostly documenting look I was not the only person in that room here is Jo signer and here's you know Jane signer and they are documented in my book that they were there and they observed what I observed there were three of us and that has so much more power than it's just me and if you want to in in light of concern that they could be called because this is a really high risk particular one then you could put a phone number or email address in your additional information in case they had to be called Laura I'll leave it up to you if you want to answer this next question now or if you want to until another time this is regarding a power of attorney what if the caller is in the fan is a family member and the Grainger's in jail these have a few of these that these sign do those yeah I know you do those quite a bit to address that now word well so you know a tale first of all um the ID issues are different in different states for that California um we are allowed if it's a jail not a prison level but jail we can use whatever identification is used on the inside like a wristband whatever that information is so that takes care of that issue for me and turns up the caller is the spouse the parent usually their parents of their adult children who've been put in jail for something and I've handled powers of attorney for them they're not healthcare directives they're usually financial so they can take care of business for their kid while they're in there when I go into the jail usually the parents create the document everything's done I go in to the jail I meet with the inmate and again I verify your parents sent me in here this is a document they created they have named themselves as the person who's going to do business for you while you're in the air is that something you want to sign I don't really have competency issues with people in jail there's other issues and then when I handle deeds in for jail it's usually a spouse and they have to sell the house unfortunately to fund the legal bills or whatever the problem is and then the other reason I go in there is they're taking their children to Mexico or you know out of the country and they need to give permission because even though they're incarcerated they haven't given up the rights as parents right all right beautiful we're going to dive deeper into jail appointments and other facility work as well there's notice the Builder coming up for that as well so let's guys we're right at 8:47 I know there's a lot of great questions out there let's move on so Laurel asked a great question just about general loan signing she says that [Music] there it is okay I can only visit for him a notary do a loan signing for a sibling my brother's purchasing a new home and I will be signing in September and he asked if I can do the signing for him Laura so the answer is state-specific some states I think Florida's one does not allow direct siblings parents children to notarize for each other so check your state law about whether family is allowed to notarize directly for family if the answer is yes then the next question becomes are you impartial you're not listed as a beneficiary you might not ever get the property or benefit from the property and then if then the last question I would ask myself is is this a good idea and is the money I'm gonna save my brother for doing it assuming I'm doing it for free worth you know any potential circumspection about these documents later so that's how I would look at it great questions and I always think you know if I'm going to be somewhere along the line I might be a beneficiary to some of that property then I'll just not not take the appointment but you can still use the appointment to your favor as well and help form relationships with other notaries or you know with the title company some way to leverage that appointment into a deeper connection listen and bill that is a great thought which is do you have notary colleagues that you might be able to tap one of them yeah they helped out exactly okay so when you receive a risky assignment like what we've been talking about do you require cash payment upon arrival for the travel fee that's a business decision so and it depends on your state what they allow you to do so for me my business decision is that the appointments that I take that are local to me meaning they're ten minutes all the hospitals facilities are for me my business decision is I don't charge I just I don't if the reason is something that was not anticipated so if if I tell them clearly you need ID it needs to be current and it needs to be this that or the other thing and then I get there and they say oh yeah oh yeah we don't have that now I'm a little ticked because I took the time hold on what they need it and then they say oh well if you wait here I'll Drive wherever and it'll be ten minutes which is really a half an hour by the time you go and come and park in the parking lot you know and then I tell them okay you know what I can come back but I came this time and you were prepared now if the story is different I forgot to ask or it's something that really couldn't be managed upfront I tend to not charge as long as they're gonna ask me back so yeah if you ask me to come back the second time great well we won't worry about this appointment and I'll come back so I do I sometimes I do and sometimes I don't I evaluate that situation and sometimes it's a better benefit for me to let it go than it is to deal with you know the 25 bucks or 30 bucks yeah I agree and you know one thing I found too is especially when you spend you know you talked a lot about assessing and you spend a lot of time assessing but the other side of assessment is building relationships having those types of conversations understanding somebody's situation having the empathy and the compassion and the expertise to guide them along the process forms relationships so but when you have that what I found is when I get to these general Milley rework appointments even if something has happened where we can't proceed I don't charge them but they insist on paying many times and sometimes that's almost like a gratuity you know they're just stuffing money into your pockets because they they want you to be taking you know they might feel a certain way about it so you can very often times get compensated more than you would ever build for it as well now marthy asked a great question to Laura and he says are notaries mandatory reporters so if you see like what this came up while you were talking about the elder abuse possibility happening inside the hospital if you are are we required by law to report something that we see so I'm not well first of all in California they tried to put through a bill to make us mandated reporters and it failed the judges determined that we don't spend enough time with them we only see them for you know 10 15 minute window we don't know what happened before we got there or what's happening after we get there and they decided a notary should not be a mandated reporter however that does not mean that I am NOT able to report something I suspect or C so it's optional for me to do that and I choose to do that most states are in the same deal they're not mandated reporters I'm not aware if somebody's on the call and your state you are a mandated reporter I'd love to hear it because I have not found a state where the notary is a mandated reporter which means you are required like a teacher would be that you are required to report suspected abuse a lot of times it's more of a gut instinct to lawyer wouldn't you agree that sometimes something just doesn't feel right and I look for any excuse not to proceed sometimes it does and some of us remember some of us had a life before we were a notary before I was a notary I ran a six bed facility for elderly long-term care so I am I have a lot stronger background and training because of that business that I ran as the administrator and my connections with the hospitals then maybe other notaries who don't come from that background so I may have a higher comfort level than others and if this is not comfortable for you then don't take these kinds of assignments beautiful all right we have a we have a few more minutes does anybody that's live on the call I'll have a couple questions for us you as well i just unmuted and I'll just say one thing I haven't had a lot of experience because I haven't done a lot of general notary work but I have had some experience with powers of attorney and one of the things that I want to point out is that you have to keep compassion out of what you do I ran into a situation I may have talked about it once before where a church group called me to a woman's home she was dying she had cancer she was very ill and they told me that it was a terrible situation her husband was not on any of the bank accounts had no money couldn't even afford to feed himself and they had created this power of attorney to allow him to take control of their finances which of course wouldn't do them any good once she passed away powers of attorney are not good after someone dies but I spent two hours at the home trying to to see if she could be lucid enough to to let me know just everything that Laura described knew what she was signing what it was for and ultimately I couldn't do it and I left and I felt so badly and she passed away that night they called me the next day and said that she had passed away and I felt very guilty and then I got to thinking about it and I and I thought there was a reason this husband was not on any of the financial you know the bank accounts or anything so there must have been some sort of a backstory they were maybe they were maybe they were getting a divorce maybe she wanted maybe it was a second or third marriage and she wanted everything to go to her children I mean I didn't know and it was it really bothered me the compassionate part of me was very torn and then I got to thinking about it and Laura I think you and I have talked about this before I was just so torn about it and so you have to you have to really think when you're doing something like this you cannot think with your heart which is hard to do when you get into certain situations and you know you have to think with your head as an escrow manager when I was running two different companies one of the things that I refused to do when people would walk in I used to do powers of attorney I didn't want to take that responsibility on for the the companies to put them in that position so I know a lot of people would disagree with me but that was one of the things that I made so I'm very comfortable with signings and getting the validated documents from the from the title companies yeah I love that you brought up compassion too because I think compassion is a critical element sometimes a missing element in what we do for some notaries but having compassion but not letting compassion override our logic and what we can do from a legal standpoint is real important Irene has a question here says after a signing appointment is over do you send a thank-you or some sort of the car to stay in touch for the future well I'll take that one I absolutely do I love staying in touch with people on that level and I credit much of my success as a loan signing agent not only to the signers when appropriate but also to escrow officers I don't do it necessarily for every signing anymore because I have pretty consistent clients and they probably get more annoyed by giving thank-you cards for every signing I do but I still I love to send card I love working with signers and connecting with signers at the appointments and in basically getting that permission to stay in touch on be a card that's what I like to do and then to tag on to that I see a question here do you leave a business card at the signing or is that considered bad taste I consider a good business the there are some signing companies that might have some rules and I encourage you to just stay in integrity with whatever you agree to do just follow those rules there's plenty of opportunities out there to leave a business card Laura you have something on there well in the general world - I almost every single time leave a business card no matter what the outcome was whether I could complete it or not complete it I always have a card and of course my invoices or receipts or the payment are branded with my name and business address and phone number as well and then when I handle for instance when I have long term relationships like with the trust companies um I I get called back to those people I was the notary who handled their trust now they have some other documents they need notarized and they go back to me because I was the one in their home helping them with something that that was significant and important and took some skill so they see me is not just a notary like at the UPS Store they see me in a different light and I get called back many times from previous clients that started as a trust client and now I'm getting called back for other things love that you know from a from a sales perspective guys anything that you can do to take control of the communication is going to be even better so business cards you know I know they're very powerful in fact probably your most powerful marketing tool but anything that you can do to get permission to send them a card to stay in touch with them via email especially on the general notary work site because you never you want the more you stay in touch and they're always going to have there's always going to be people buy and sell and die and are being born they're going to need your notary and if you can stay top of mind you're gonna grow your business let's see I think we have one more time for one more question here and this was from where is she there is Lizbeth this is about signing up with signing agents their websites am i required to put the address that I have under my commission or can I put a different address she has a different home address than your business address I actually get this question quite a bit when you're signing up with signing agencies you can use whatever address you want kind of your zip code to be based out of there not there's not little ninjas back there coordinating and making sure that your notary Commission address matches your business address not your home address that way not to stress out too much about it but do you know that a lot of them have algorithms that go based on your zip code you will get more signings for whatever zip code you give them that's usually how it works anything else further on that Laura no I agree when it comes to you're no longer using an address and remember Secretary of State and this isn't all the states they need to know where you're located and if you've provided them a home address and that changes make sure that you're notifying them per their specific requirements in California we have to do it in writing and has to be via a method that produces a receipt whether it is my business address cuz I have an office address or it's my home address or I work for a business and the business name changes if any of those three things change I'm required to tell the Secretary of State yep good good reminder there for sure okay guys that's where just after nine o'clock that was an awesome presentation Laura thank you and guess what that means we have a ton of questions for next week so we'll dive in on those questions next week and keep them coming I'll send out a couple emails just feel free to reply to those or you can just email me directly and orders and notary coach comm and we'll do our best to get those questions uploaded into a presentation thank you guys have a great week thank you for growing yourself and your business on the Tuesday for Tuesday military titans by Laura bye Carol thank you for popping in