YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, WE HAVE ANSWERS!
VIVA ESCROW Q & A SEGMENT
(Real questions sent to us – verbatim!)
Clients overseas? Trials and tribulations of documents signed out of the country and notarized at the American Consulate.
SCENARIO:
Our borrower is a practicing attorney working for an American firm in China. Due to rate lock expiration concerns, instead of us sending the 100 plus pages of loan documents to him by Federal Express, the Borrower was willing to get an email with the documents which he would print out and sign. 5 of the documents required notarization at the American Consulate and he did not want to miss the appointment.
I, and most escrow professionals, tend to be control freaks, and we get jittery when the documents are printed and signed outside of our office. What if they are not printed or signed correctly? After review of these documents we found one potential issue that we had to deal with upfront.
Borrower has a middle name on his passport and it is reflected on all of the lender’s documents signature lines. However, on his passport we saw that he does not sign with his middle name and he stated that it was never part of his official signature. Questions: Will signing with a middle name be a problem for the notary at the Consulate when his actual passport signature does not match? If he does not sign with a middle name, will his lender reject the documents because they do not match their documents? And will the County Recorder also reject the document because his signature does not match?
Questions! Questions! Such a simple concern but if not addressed up front, problems could follow. Imagine the signed documents being rejected by Lender or at the County at the last moment! Documents might have to be redrawn, another appointment would have to be made at the consulate for re-signing, the interest rate lock might have to be extended involving additional extension fees.
ANSWER:
Every scenario, every transaction is different. There is no perfect answer to the questions raised because each Notary person, Lender funder, and County Recorder clerk is different and will look at documents differently. What will pass in one transaction might not in others. As escrow professionals, all we can do is give our clients sufficient information regarding potential issues so that they can be informed when things don’t happen the way we want. In this particular case, the borrower signed WITHOUT the middle name. Luckily, The Consulate notary accepted it as did the Lender and the County Clerk. Right!
All good? No, because this was not the only issue we had with this file and the second issue is addressed in the Educational Moment below.
EDUCATIONAL MOMENT:
After signing, the borrower scanned and emailed us the 100 plus pages of his loan documents to make sure there were no missing signatures and dates. We approved and the borrower overnighted the package to us. Imagine our shock when we opened up the package, pulled out the documents and found that they were printed double sided!!! Some documents’ signature page was on the back of another document; some notary pages were on the back of the signature page. Beware! Lenders and County Recorders DO NOT like double sided documents, especially when one document can share the same space as another totally different document!
Continued escrow drama! Rate lock is expiring, could we get around NOT having to re-sign and needing another appointment at the Consulate? Thankfully, there was only one document to submit to the County and the signature and notary pages were on different sheets. So we could swap out 20 out of the 24 pages and line through the back of the 2 that we could not use. But what about the Lender? Could they deal with the mess? All we could do was ship them the documents “as is” immediately and see if they were willing to take it double sided. Well, all’s well that ends well. The Lender accepted it. The County recorded it.
All in a day’s work for an escrow professional. Here is an educational moment. Never assume that a client will know to print single sided. Many people want to save paper. Escrow people print single-sided because it is easier to read a physical document in a paper file if you don’t have to turn the file upside down every time you need to read the next page. And also because of county recording requirements.
A note to all escrow professionals: when sending documents to clients for them to print, and sign, give them clear instructions to print “fit to page” (does not cut off signature blocks on legal size documents or bar codes on loan documents) and “single sided” to avoid what we went through!
Finally, could we have just printed a copy of what was scanned to us and sent it to the County Recorder for recording, without worrying about it being double sided? For that answer, see my Think Escrow YouTube video below.
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~ Video of the Month ~
5 types of property you should not consider unless you have done your homework!
This video was made by a real estate attorney in North Carolina but her concerns apply to California properties, too!
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~ Quotes of the Month ~
If it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.
You have power over your mind – not outside events.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Do not let others hold you back
~ Marcus Aurelius – “Meditations” ~
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My YouTube Offering for the Month
Yes, we need original signatures!
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You Have Questions? We Have Answers!
Juliana Tu, CSEO, CEO, CBSS, CEI, SASIP
Escrow is my FOREMOST language!
Advance Disclosure:
The opinions expressed in this blog are solely the author’s.
Your comments and viewpoints are always welcome.
Info @ VivaEscrow.com