
More than a notary. Trained for mortgage documents.
A loan signing agent is a commissioned notary public with specialized training in mortgage loan packages. Where a general notary witnesses a single signature, a signing agent manages a 100–200 page loan package — guiding borrowers through every signature location, applying notary seals on every required page and packaging the completed documents for overnight return to the lender.
The quality of the signing directly affects the lender’s funding timeline. A clean, complete package returns to the lender on the first try. A messy or incomplete package gets kicked back, delays funding and costs the borrower per-diem interest charges against their rate lock.
Hanson Webb is an NNA Certified Signing Agent with over 17 years of Massachusetts notary experience. He holds current background screening, E&O insurance and bonding — the credentials most title companies require before assigning a signing.
- ✓ Guides borrowers to signature locations
- ✓ Witnesses and notarizes required signatures
- ✓ Packages documents for lender return
- ✓ Verifies borrower identity per MA law
- ✓ Confirms return shipping and delivery
- ✗ Conducting the real estate closing
- ✗ Drafting or explaining legal documents
- ✗ Providing legal advice on loan terms
- ✗ Title search or title insurance
Seven package types. All handled personally.
Every signing is managed personally by Hanson Webb. No subcontractors. No hand-offs. The same agent who accepts the assignment completes the signing.
Refinance
Conventional, FHA, VA, jumbo, fixed-rate and ARM refinance packages. Standard 100–150 page packages completed in 45–60 minutes.
HELOC
Standalone and piggyback HELOC packages. Typically shorter than a full refinance. Scheduled for 30–45 minutes on site.
Second Mortgage
Home equity loan packages issued as a second lien. Handled with the same attention to lender-specific signing requirements as a primary refinance.
Reverse Mortgage
HECM and proprietary reverse mortgage packages. Extra time budgeted for senior borrowers. HUD counseling certifications and HECM disclosures handled with care.
Mail-Away Signing
Remote borrower signings when the primary closing happens at another location. Borrower signs their portion of the package at their home or office.
Spousal-Only Signing
When one borrower cannot attend the primary closing. We attend the spouse’s location separately, completing their portion of the package for same-day return.
POA Signing
When a borrower signs under a power of attorney. We verify the POA document alongside borrower ID and notarize in the name of the principal as directed by the lender.
Volume Assignments
Title companies and lenders with recurring signing needs: ask about volume pricing. Net 15 or net 30 invoicing. Direct assignment by email or platform.
Flat rates by package type. No hidden fees.
All prices are per signing. Volume pricing available for title company partners with recurring assignment volume.
- ✓ 45–60 min typical
- ✓ All lenders accepted
- ✓ Same-day available
- ✓ 30–45 min typical
- ✓ Evening slots available
- ✓ Second mortgage included
- ✓ 75–90 min budgeted
- ✓ HECM disclosures handled
- ✓ Senior facility visits
- ✓ Spousal signings included
- ✓ POA signings handled
- ✓ Overnight return confirmed
Greater Boston and Merrimack Valley.
Our home base is Tewksbury, MA — centrally located for rapid deployment across the full coverage area. Extended coverage to Worcester County and Metro Boston priced for distance.
Not listed? Call 978-424-4629. We serve many additional towns and quote all locations before accepting the assignment.
What you need from a signing agent. We deliver it.
Fast confirmation
Same-day assignments accepted most days before 1 PM for afternoon signings. Morning assignments by 9 AM. Call for urgent turnaround.
NNA credentials current
Annual NNA recertification, background screening, E&O insurance and bonding documentation available on request. Meets standard title company requirements.
Clean packages, first try
We review the package before every appointment. Missing pages, wrong dates and mis-ordered documents get caught before the borrower sees them. Not after.
Flexible billing
Net 15 or net 30 invoicing by company preference. Borrower-paid signings collect at appointment. Direct invoice by email or through your signing platform.
No subcontracting
Hanson Webb handles every assignment personally. The agent who accepts the signing is the agent who completes it. No hand-offs, no substitutes.
Photo confirmation
Photo of completed and packaged documents sent as confirmation to your office before FedEx or UPS handoff. Tracking number provided on request.
How clean packages actually happen.
Every signing agent promises error-free work. A process you can audit is worth more than a promise, so here is ours, stage by stage.
Before the appointment
The assignment sheet gets read twice, once at acceptance and once the night before. We verify the borrower contact against the file, confirm the page count on the emailed package, print nothing until the final version arrives and flag special instructions, from trailing documents to attorney-witness requirements, back to your closer in writing. If anything in the package looks short or inconsistent, you hear about it before the borrower does.
At the table
The package is signed in checklist order, never shuffled. Dates are checked against the closing date on every dated line. Notarial certificates are inventoried before the first signature and completed as we go, not batched at the end where one gets missed. IDs are examined against the names on the documents, and any discrepancy stops the signing for a phone call to your office rather than an improvised fix.
Before it leaves our hands
Every package gets a second full pass after the borrowers stand up: signatures, initials, dates, certificates, riders. Only then does it get scanned and shipped. The audit adds minutes to our evening, not yours, and it is the reason funding-delay calls almost never trace back to one of our tables.
The discipline extends to what we refuse to do. Borrower questions about rates, payoff figures or whether to proceed get routed to your closer or the loan officer, with the signing paused if needed. An agent who freelances answers at the table creates liability for everyone in the transaction chain, including you. The division of roles is spelled out plainly in our guide to the difference between a notary public, a signing agent and a loan officer, which some title companies hand to new processors as orientation reading.
Scan quality is part of the same standard. Title processors work from the scan-back for days before the originals arrive, so ours go out as a single continuous PDF in checklist order, every page captured flat and legible, exceptions listed in the covering email rather than buried on page ninety. Trailing documents that surface after the appointment are scanned and shipped under the same rules as the main package, with your file number on everything.
Errors we see from the industry at large, and engineer against, are catalogued in our article on real estate closing notary mistakes in Massachusetts. Send it to any vendor you are evaluating and ask how they prevent each one. We welcome the comparison.
Onboarding paperwork, ready before you ask.
Adding a signing agent to an approved vendor list should take one email exchange, not a week of chasing documents.
Title companies and signing services maintain vendor files for a reason: auditors, underwriters and lenders all want proof the person at the borrower’s table was commissioned, screened and insured. Our vendor packet is maintained as a current set at all times, so onboarding runs at your pace instead of ours. On request you receive the W-9, the Massachusetts notary commission certificate, the NNA Certified Signing Agent credential, the current annual background screening result and evidence of E&O coverage and bonding, in one reply.
Renewals are handled the same way. Certifications and screenings are renewed annually and updated documents go out to standing partners without a request, because an expired credential discovered during a lender audit is exactly the kind of surprise a vendor file exists to prevent. If your platform tracks expiration dates, we keep the profile current there too.
Billing terms are set once, at onboarding, and confirmed in writing: invoicing on the schedule your accounting team prefers, volume arrangements for recurring assignment flow and a single phone number that reaches the same person who sat at the table. The fee schedule itself lives in the rate table above and on our notary pricing page, so your closers quote borrowers accurately without calling us first.
When an underwriter or lender audit touches one of your closings, the vendor file does the talking. Journal practices, credential history and insurance evidence are organized so your compliance team answers an auditor’s question in one email instead of a week of archaeology. Hanson Webb has held a Massachusetts commission continuously since 2007, and the paper trail behind every signing reflects that tenure: complete journal entries, consistent certificate practices and documentation that reads the same way in year eighteen as it did in year one.
For a broader look at how we work inside title company operations, including recurring coverage and how assignment volume is scheduled, see our page on mobile notary work for title companies in Massachusetts. If your company is opening a vendor file this week, send the request through our contact page or call 978-424-4629 and the packet goes out the same business day.
Turn times, status updates and the appointments that wobble.
Signings fail on logistics more often than on notarial law. Here is how the operational side runs, including the parts nobody puts on a marketing page.
Status communication follows a fixed rhythm you can set a watch by. Assignment accepted: confirmation to your office. Borrower contacted: confirmation with the agreed appointment window. Appointment complete: same-hour notice with any exceptions called out explicitly. Scan-backs reach title within 4 hours when requested at booking, originals ship per your instructions with tracking sent automatically, and a no-answer borrower triggers a call to your office rather than a silent gap in the file. Your processor should never have to ask where a package is; the answer should already be in the inbox.
None of this rhythm is bespoke, which is the point. It runs identically on a quiet Tuesday refinance in Woburn and on the last business day of the month with three tables scheduled, because a process that only works when the calendar is kind is not a process. Your month-end packages get the same second-pass audit as everything else.
Greater Boston geography is a real variable and we schedule like it. A 5 PM signing in Quincy and a 6:30 PM in Waltham do not belong on the same calendar, whatever the map claims about distance. We quote appointment windows that survive Route 128 at rush hour, build buffers between evening signings and tell you at acceptance when a requested window is not realistic, while there is still time to adjust the borrower’s expectations rather than apologize after.
Same-day coverage follows the cutoffs in the rate section above: morning assignments accepted by 9 AM, afternoon signings most days when assigned before 1 PM, with a phone call beating a platform ping for anything urgent. What we will not do is accept a same-day assignment we cannot make. A declined assignment costs you five minutes; an agent who accepts and then misses costs you the borrower’s goodwill and possibly the funding date. You always get the honest answer at acceptance time.
Then there are the appointments that wobble. Documents that miss the print deadline, borrowers who need to move the time twice, a package redrawn an hour before the table: every signing service knows these days. Our protocol is immediate notification and a held slot where the calendar allows, so a late package becomes a two-hour slide instead of a lost closing date. Weather cancellations work the same way, with the reschedule offered in the same phone call as the cancellation.
Two capacity notes worth putting on the record. Evening and weekend tables are part of normal coverage, not a favor, because Greater Boston borrowers sign after work far more often than during it; the applicable surcharge is stated in the confirmation so your closer quotes it correctly the first time. And when a borrower is more comfortable in Arabic or French, say so at assignment. Our staff offers fluency in both, and a borrower who understands the signing agent tends to produce a calmer table and a cleaner package.
The track record behind these procedures is public. More than 1,190 signings completed, a 4.9 average across 187 verified reviews and partner relationships that have outlasted several market cycles. We would rather show you the reviews and the vendor packet than write another adjective about reliability.
Reverse mortgages, seller-side packages and applications with unusual witness requirements get flagged at acceptance, because the time to discover a second-witness requirement is before dispatch, not at the borrower’s kitchen table. If your operation runs signings we have not discussed here, ask. The honest answer, including the occasional “that one needs an attorney, not a signing agent,” is how vendor relationships last a decade.
Loan signing questions, answered.
Are you a licensed Massachusetts attorney?
Are you NNA certified and insured?
How quickly can you accept a same-day signing?
Do you handle reverse mortgage signings?
Do you work with specific signing platforms?
Can you explain loan terms to the borrower?
What is your billing structure for title companies?
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Learn moreMassachusetts law (M.G.L. c. 222, § 17 and Executive Order 455) reserves real estate closings for licensed Massachusetts attorneys. Tewksbury Notary acts as a notary signing agent only. We perform all loan signings in conjunction with the borrower’s Massachusetts-licensed attorney or lender. We do not conduct closings, draft or complete legal documents, explain the legal effect of any document, advise on mortgage terms, or provide legal advice of any kind.
We are notary public experts, not attorneys. Nothing on this page or provided during a signing appointment constitutes legal advice. Borrowers with questions about their loan documents, terms or legal rights must consult with their licensed Massachusetts attorney or lender before signing.
Loan packages contain nonpublic personal financial information (NPI) as defined under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We handle all NPI in accordance with our Privacy Policy and our Written Information Security Program (WISP). Loan packages are handled securely and returned or destroyed immediately following each signing appointment.
All prices listed are per signing. Final pricing may vary based on package complexity, travel distance and time of day. Same-day availability is not guaranteed. All fees are nonrefundable with less than 24 hours notice of cancellation. See our full pricing page and Terms of Agreement.