Emailing a Contract - A few questions!

[Ryan Whitcher]

Hi All,

Looked through the forums and didn't see any thread on this so I figured this would be of help to others as well in this situation!

I have a seller in which I would like to email a contract (purchase agreement) for them to sign via DocuSign. This will be a wholesale deal, my question is: 

- Do you need a notary when using DocuSign?

- What are the steps after seller has signed the document (via DocuSign or whatever service you use) - do you go to title company and open escrow?

Thanks in advance!

Ryan

[Blair Poelman]

There has been legislation to deal with this - Digital Signature Act of 1999, Esign of 2000, etc...  made digital signatures legal valid signatures.

However, a digital signature cannot be notarized - the nature of a notary is a person to person verification and ID check making sure the person signing the doc is who they say they are and they are putting pen to paper in front of the notary.

Some documents cannot be digitally signed - Sometimes this is law, sometimes it is policy of whoever / whatever administers the document or the intent of the document.

Examples:

• a purchase contract can be digitally signed
• FHA will allow buyers to digitally sign some disclosures, but sellers have to wet sign.
• You can't digitally sign a deed - because it has to be notarized.