I read somewhere that most of the electronic notarizations in the real estate business are assignments of mortgage, for counties that accept electronically notarized documents. It's all done in-house; the notary would be a bank employee. The advantages would be the documents could be fully monitored by the selling bank's and the buying bank's computers, to make sure everything was as it should be: correct names, correct dates, all required signatures present, etc. Then it can be rapidly sent to the buying bank so the money can be wired quickly, and it can be sent for recording the same day.
We don't know if in-person enotarization will catch on elsewhere in the real estate business, but it might. The documents will be available to all parties immediately. Title and the lender could control the signing process so tightly there is hardly any review of the documents to be done; if the signer and notary aren't filling them out the way lender and title want them filled out, the computer won't let the signer or notary finish the signing step. They can't finish the signing if any signatures are missing, any boxes are not checked, etc.
In the case of a purchase in a table-funded state, the buyer, seller, and lender could all be in different states, and because of the immediate transmission of documents, everyone could leave the table with their money and originals of all the docs they need. |
