The way things can change in a few hours....
So, on Thursday I get the phone call that my mortgage refi is all approved and when can they send the notary out to do the paperwork signing? I would have loved to do it right then, but "We're having a blizzard right now."
The guy was in California and probably couldn't relate to the word "blizzard". But I could sense his impatience and desperation. After all, the end of the month was coming up fast, and in addition to my wanting to get my money from the refi, all the people involved surely wanted to get their commission checks. Plus, who knew when the whole country was going to be ordered to shut down, and things like mortgages wouldn't be considered to be an important enough reason to be out on the road.
"Whenever you want," he insisted.
The blizzard was supposed to be over the early morning hours of Friday, and I wouldn't have my driveway shoveled by then. "How about Saturday morning."
"What time?" he asked.
"Nine AM?"
"Whenever you want," he repeated forcefully.
"Okay, nine o'clock Saturday morning."
Ten minutes later, a woman calls me with a Colorado Springs area code. She's the notary and she'll be out Saturday morning. Great. I was actually surprised that she didn't say anything like, "We need to make sure we stay at least six feet apart inside your house." She obviously wanted to get the 100+ papers signed and get paid, virus be damned.
Friday evening she called me back. "They're telling us we can't go inside people's houses. So, I'm going to stay in my car when I get to your house. You need to have your driver's license and social security card in a plastic baggie waiting outside. And then I'll pick it up and leave you the papers, so you can take them inside. I can be on the phone with you while you sign them."
Okay, whatever.
So, Saturday morning she arrives. I have a footstool outside my garage with the plastic baggie on it. After she's picked it up and left the mortgage papers, I come out and take the mortgage papers inside. I'm sure transactions like this -- including the delivery of food -- are going on in this way all over the world.
I was on the phone with her while I signed the papers. All of the dozens that needed a signature or initial she'd placed a sticky on showing where to sign. I said to her that it must have taken her a long, long time to prepare this set of papers and she said that it had. When I was done, I had to take the set back out and leave on the foot stool. She'd left her notary book there, open to where I needed to sign. Then left me my copy of the papers.
I'm sure everyone at the mortgage company is still sweating it, hoping they can push everything through before somebody in government stops the process via stopping just about everything. As is, Colorado law gives me three business days to say "never mind", so the loan can't go through anyway until Wednesday. I'd think most in that industry can work from home, but the notary was a different situation because she's supposed to be witnessing my signing of the papers. I guess being on the phone with her while I signed was considered official enough by that profession. Funny how easily laws are shifted when there is deemed to be sufficient cause.