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Real Estate Contracts Using Digital Signatures Like DocuSign
Real estate contracts using digital signatures like DocuSign can be an excellent tool, or it can be a real pain. Yesterday was a prime example. We received a purchase contract on one of our listings in the morning. We sent it out for digital signatures. Our seller had signed it but evidently didn’t click on the finish button. This stalled the entire process. I contacted our seller, but he said he had completed the process and could not finish it. I logged on to DocuSign, and it was not complete. What to do?
Though he was the only legal signature required for his corporation, he also has a silent partner. He informed me he wanted them both to sign the agreement as well. We uploaded the second signer and sent it out again for signatures. Still, no completion alert came in the email. The second attempt had also stalled yet again. Also, the purchase contract had now expired. It is feeling a bit like Groundhog Day at this point.
Signing real estate contracts using Digital signatures like DocuSign was undoubtedly proving to be a challenge for our sellers. DocuSign email also can only sign one person at a time before it is automatically sent to the next person to sign. I always sign first, so I know it went out. The second signer, the managing partner, seemed to be having issues. Or, perhaps he wanted to see his partners’ signatures before he signed? I decided to upload the purchase contract yet again and add my extension of time addendum, which included verbiage: “this is an as-is sale, the roof and pest damage would not be repaired.”
Third time is the charm. I decided to place the second partner of the corporation into first place as a signer, so the managing partner would sign last. it is now 6 PM as the partners were busy during the day. This time It worked like a charm. The purchase agreement came back fully signed. We are now in escrow. Technology is helpful, but it can not replace human interaction. DocuSign could not know to add on another buyer. It does not resend when stalled with the second party. Also, it is not intuitive, so it could not figure out what was needed as there was another factor that had not been communicated; the managing partner needed to see the second partner’s signature, before feeling comfortable to sign.
Maybe someday DocuSign will be able to ask questions and complete the process without human intervention. These are not new glitches, and they’ve not corrected this glitch in the last 17 years. I was the first Realtor to use a laptop and digital signature in my office. I had a buyer friend, Jason Smith, and he worked in the technology field. He wanted to buy a home in the Phoenix Field area of Fair Oaks. He said, ” You do use digital signatures, right?” I replied, ” I do now.” I logged on and used it for the first time. Jason signed the offer, and within two hours, including showing the property, I had the proposal sent to the agent’s email. The offer was accepted within 10 minutes. I knew at that moment, my life as a Realtor was about to change in a big way.
Before DocuSign-type technology was available, I had been delivering offers in person or by fax. I no longer use a fax machine. My transaction coordinator has e-fax in the event a client who is not comfortable with digital signatures needs to fax. The moral of this story, technology can expedite; however, in this case, I could have driven to the two partners’ homes, obtained the signatures and scanned them to the buyer’s agent in less time than the digital process had taken yesterday.
If you want to buy or sell using digital signatures, call us as we never give up. We will sign you in person or use fax if needed, whatever it takes. Call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors at RE/MAX Gold, 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
DocuSign vs Digital Ink for Sacramento Real Estate Agents
For a lot of real estate agents, when it comes to DocuSign vs Digital Ink, most tend to choose whichever platform they are introduced to. I’m wondering if many ever compare systems. I’ve used both, and I’ll just lay it on the line upfront that when it comes to DocuSign vs Digital Ink, my vote enthusiastically goes to DocuSign.
Because I’ve been using computers since the 1980s, online since 1991, I generally do not struggle with technology issues. In fact, I often discover back doors to overcome obstacles when glitches set in. There is usually more than one way to access data. But when an agent sent a Digital Ink document a few days ago, it took me a long period of time to figure out how to access a document, much less sign it.
The buyer’s agent had forwarded a purchase contract to me via Digital Ink. He is a new agent, licensed last fall, and I don’t think he’s closed a transaction yet. There were no signatures in the Digital Ink file. They were not set up to sign. But just dicking around with the program was a bit irritating.
Finally, I said to the agent, you should just use DocuSign. For digital signatures, when comparing DocuSign with Digital Ink, DocuSign is so much easier and more user friendly. Even my 95-year-old clients can sign a document with DocuSign. The buyer’s agent agreed, said his Millennial clients could not figure out how to use Digital Ink, either, and that’s why they couldn’t sign the contract.
Part of his problem, in all fairness for the DocuSign vs Digital Ink discussion, is he, like many others, want to synchronize MLS with their digital signing software. In my opinion, synching is a bad idea. The concept sounds like it’s easier and more stress free, but it is not. The reason is the data that is pulled into the documents such as a California Residential Purchase Agreement is pulled from an unreliable source such as Realist. Bad data in, bad data out.
I can’t even begin to take listing in Sacramento until I check Realist against Metroscan, to reconcile, and both pull data from the public records, which can also reflect wrong data. I have more issues with Realist than Metroscan. Names of owners are often reversed, especially Asian names. Or, not all of the owner’s names are disclosed. I always enter my information manually, so at least my documents are correct. Because I care more than the average bear about accuracy.
The other issue with synching with MLS data is it pulls every listing agent’s name into the contract, even if only one agent should be identified.
Later in the day, after I received the signed purchase agreement, the buyer’s agent sent me the contract in DocuSign. There were no signatures on the contract in DocuSign. I asked the agent why. Why did he send me the contract without signatures when I have the signatures? Answer: because I told him to sign up for DocuSign, LOL.
I feel bad for him now because he has two digital signature accounts. I prefer to pay for my own account so all of my data belongs to me. Having your own account also means when my brokerage’s account goes down for whatever odd reason, I can still access my own account.
DocuSign also has a mobile app and I don’t think Digital Ink does. It is very easy to access all of your settings in DocuSign and make the software perform exactly the way you want it to. My only beef, if that is a beef, is I can’t preset signatures to sign at a future date and future time. You know, drip the email to go out on a certain date. That would be helpful to me as a top listing agent because I could upload everything at one time and schedule the paperwork to go out on different days. Because I handle volume.
Or, a client is traveling and asks me to upload a contract on a certain day when I might be traveling. Sometimes I work from my house in Hawaii. I asked DocuSign if we could have this feature and their programmers shot me down flat. A girl can hope for someday. But for efficiency purposes, client happiness and simple peace of mind, you really can’t beat DocuSign.
Just ask Tom Gonser.
About Digital Signatures for Short Sale Banks
It’s not just short sale banks that don’t like digital signatures. It’s pretty much all banks, except the government. It’s hard to believe that here we are in the fourth quarter of 2012 and short sale banks are refusing to accept digital signatures on a purchase contract or any legal documents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a lot of fraud and crooks, and it’s hard to control every aspect of a transaction — to filter out the possibility of mortgage fraud, but give us a break. If we wanted to forge signatures, I suppose it’s pretty easy to do.
Real estate clients love DocuSign, which is the digital service this Sacramento agent uses to put deals together. They can check their email for the notification from DocuSign. Then, they click on the link in the email which takes them to the DocuSign website where their document is awaiting perusal and signature. They choose a signature they like and they adopt that signature by clicking on it. Every place in the purchase offer that requires an initial or a signature, they just click. It’s like magic. The initial and / or signature is applied right there on their monitor. It doesn’t get any easier.
After the purchase offer is executed by all of the buyers and the listing agent, the digital service sends a completed copy to all parties. This process saves a ton of trees. It’s all electronic. It makes sense to do business this way.
Yet, the short sale banks won’t accept a digital signature. Nope, they make you print it out, sign and initial with an ink pen, and then fax the documents so they can more easily lose those documents. You would think the fax number would at least be an efax number so the documents would go to an email account, but no. They go to an old-fashioned fax machine and fall out all over the floor, where somebody walks by, kicks them, sends them scattered, until the night cleaning crew shows up to sweep them into the trash. This is how we do business at the big banks.
Even the government, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, accepts digital signatures. Why can’t the short sale banks?
