Kerrie: So what are we dishing about this month?

Jim: I don’t know. Got any good ideas? If you don’t, I can always complain about the standard practice of sending the fifth fax of the pink page of the purchase contract to the title company so it is absolutely impossible to determine the parties, the property or the price.

Kerrie: What brought this on?

Jim: Its hot outside and I feel like complaining. When opposing lawyers work on contracts for their respective clients, they pass around drafts and documents by email so we avoid that multi-faxed copy mess. Is there something magical about a real estate contract that it must be faxed and copied, faxed and copied?

Kerrie: So you want to jump right into electronic signatures and all that?

Jim: No, not really. But electronic signatures are legal in Ohio and some of the County Recorder’s offices are set up for it. And you know we must file electronically in federal courts and some of the local courts have e-filing. We have electronic signatures there. Why can’t the real estate industry get on the band wagon?

Kerrie: It is not that simple. When we file something with a court, we have already set accounts, etc., and we are bound by professional ethics (and court sanctions) not to abuse the process. So there is a difference in those filings from a situation where parties are negotiating an offer to purchase. The contract could be circulated by email, negotiated and changed; and finally printed out and electronically signed and sent back to the other party. But, since we are talking about real estate sales, I still would want “wet” signatures on the contract at some point. And, before you ask, a “wet” signature is a hand-written, inked signature.

Jim: Seems easy enough.

Kerrie: Not really. There is always the issue of delivery. You know we have had cases where a seller signed a counter-offer, but never sent it back to the buyer. This comes up a lot in faxes. We would need some standard to determine when the document has been delivered electronically. Is it when it is emailed; something lawyers call the “mailbox rule,” or would that mean when the hard copy is sent by regular mail? Or does “delivery” mean when it hits the other party’s server; or does it mean when the email is opened? And, how do we verify who actually opened the email? And what about a receipt? Our email system, for example, has that super filter to weed out all of those junk emails for Viagra and penny-stock offers. But it sometimes also quarantines emails from clients and other attorneys. How do we deal with that? And, don’t forget, delivery to a party’s agent is the same as delivery to a party. So, the same rules of delivery would apply to the agent as well.

Jim: Well, in the Middle Ages we did not have to deal with such problems. No computer crashes. Did not worry about backups. Copies did take a long time, but the notary seal was really a seal with hot wax and all that. But, I digress….

Kerrie: In many commercial real estate transactions negotiations are done by email, but the lenders always want actual signed documents before they fund. So it is possible to do a residential transaction by email, but I believe that the transaction is not fully executed until wet signatures are delivered to the appropriate party.

Jim: It would certainly help with the file storage. Oh yeah, my other complaint is about legal size paper. Can we get rid of that too?

Kerrie: Baby steps, my husband.

Jim: Yes dear.