It’s no secret that many of you have seen your Notary signing agent fees go down. It is one of the most persistent topics of discussion on Notary social media pages.
At the same time, loan-signing assignments are taking longer than ever before, document packages are larger than ever, and gasoline, paper, toner and other costs are going up, making it difficult to turn a profit.
Signing agents routinely ask, “Why isn't the NNA doing something about this?”
This is an important concern and you deserve an honest response.
The hard truth
There’s a very simple reason why we don’t talk about NSA fees: Federal law prohibits us from doing so. Neither the NNA nor Notary signing agents can engage in actions to fix prices. We also can’t host discussions calling for set fees.
We understand many of you would like us to function like a trade union and advocate for the fees you are paid. At a minimum, you want us to provide a forum where you can talk about fees to members and anyone else who could be listening.
It’s important to remember that we are a professional association, not a trade union, and signing agents are independent contractors who compete with each other.
Competitors and price-fixing
When it comes to the issue of fees, the law is very strict about any actions members of a profession or professional associations take that could improperly restrict trade. Federal law prohibits competitors in an industry from getting together to discuss or set fees. This is known as “price fixing.” For example, it would be illegal if all the tax preparers got together and decided no one in the profession should charge less than $100 for preparing a Short Form Tax Return. There would be no competition. As a consumer, whichever tax preparer you called would quote you the exact same price.
We learned these lessons firsthand in the early days of supporting the work of Notary signing agents.
Years ago the NNA published a draft of a suggested minimum fee schedule for signing agents. Though not intended as a binding rule or standard, after publication the NNA learned the draft could be perceived as an attempt to unfairly influence signing agent fees. To ensure we followed the law, the NNA removed the fee schedule from our website, publications and reference material.
Discussions among NSAs
During this experience, we also learned that antitrust laws prohibit competitors like signing agents from getting together to set or discuss fees. And we learned that, as a professional association, we have a special obligation to proactively take steps to keep discussions and gatherings we host — our publications, annual conference, seminars and even our social communities — free from any discussions amongst members about the subject of fees.
This is why we cannot allow discussions on signing agent fees, costs and related matters on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and on our website. This is also why we sometimes must remove posts about fees that could be considered “price-fixing” under the law.
We can and do discuss statutory fees Notaries are allowed to charge for notarial acts.
In our competitive national economy, the market should dictate the fees individual companies pay per loan signing, and what you as individual competitors charge for your services.
We understand this answer isn’t satisfying to many of you. We want you to know that we’ll continue to work for you in ways that we can as a professional association, while adhering to federal laws. The NNA works to provide information to the nation's Notaries, Secretaries of State, and to many major lenders, banks, title companies and signing services.
Bill Anderson is Vice President of Government Affairs with the National Notary Association