February 18, 2019
The Rise of Digital Closings
One of our service areas—Massachusetts—has joined fourteen other states in permitting its counties to utilize a new sort of notary system in the closing process: a digital notary.
The property transfer system is a notoriously old-fashioned one. There’s good reason for this—any change to such a system has far-reaching consequences that may not be immediately perceived when it is proposed, and may affect not only the nature of future ownership, but the perceptions of prior and current ownerships as well.
Nonetheless, while to this point it has appeared to be the trend in our society to move toward digital in all transactions—and indeed, while much of the real estate transaction process had already gone digital to this point—one element has continued to bring buyer and seller together on closing day: the requirement by lenders that the buyers in a transaction have a notary physically present at the closing.
Now digital notary platform Notarize has teamed up with the national title company Title Resources to complete the circle and bring property closings into the realm of the fully digital in those fifteen states.
Naturally this has its benefits. Less paper, less ink, less time spent in the car. Less time to closing overall.
Yet, as with any move to increase convenience, there are certain trade-offs made in the process.
Not least of these is that this final step represents another step away from the face-to-face transactions that have long characterized meetings of the minds, providing a certain conviviality to the course of particular human affairs that can proceed somewhat bloodlessly. Moreover, we at Topouzis & Associates, P.C. have lost count of the number of times that something has been cleared up at the very last moment in a closing, due to conversation, that the parties had not even been aware might be a problem.
Where problems with title are concerned, we at Topouzis & Associates, P.C. are experts at ferreting them out and disposing with them in advance of closing. We take pride in the great amount and quality of experience we bring to the closing table in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Florida. Contact us if you want a partner in your property closing—one who makes everyone involved feel like family.
