It all started out a couple years ago. It was in a pretty down year in 2008. I was having one of my worst years ever, and working very hard. I was doing anything and everything to get buyers, listings, business. I met these buyers through a friend and they were looking to purchase a $650,000 house.
My buyers made an offer on this house in Boca Raton, FL and after some shrewd negotiating we came to terms. The inspection went well, the financing was going well we were all set for closing when guess what an issue arose. The title company had an issue with probate and had to delay the closing about 3 days. The problem was they did not tell us this until closing. Lender drew the package and requested as a closing condition for an addendum stating that all personal property was left as a matter of convenience and had no monetary value.
No problem, I drew this up and emailed it to my buyers and requested that I needed to have their original signatures on this addendum as required by the lender. Please overnight the addendum using my UPS acct#xxxxx.
To my surprise apparently my buyers did not understand that they had to sign documents and were going on a cruise at noon the next day. It was like 7:00 PM that evening.
What?
Are you Kidding?
Really? Where did it all go wrong?
Not being first time buyers I assumed they understood they needed to sign documents at a real estate closing.
Okay time to jump into action.
I did read "Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller", and I was not going to be Willy. I decided to put my traveling salesman hat on and realized what Willy would not do. I went to the title company, gathered the what seemed like 200 pages of documents and decided to leave first thing the next morning.
They were leaving out of Port Canaveral which is like 2 hours from me. I had no choice because I am a traveling salesman and well I kind of needed the money. Luckily no traffic and I was at the Port by 10 AM. I also was a notary and very familar with closing packages as I used to work for my father's title company for a number of years. I had the buyer's sign all those documents including the addendum. That was an absolute mess. The lender told us that we needed to fund by Friday or they were cancelling the deal. Luckily I was back by 2:00 PM and brought it to the title company and we ended up closing as the title issues were cleared that day as well. Now they say realtor's don't travel?
I have yet to use docusign, but I am intrigued by it. I just did not know if it was compatible, and whether or not lender's will accept these electronic signatures if a contract and/or addendum's are signed that way. Normally they like to use their proprietary programs for digital signatures.
Top 10 Things I would have avoided if I had docusign
- A very Sleepless Night.
- The $60 in gas I had to spend to fill up my SUV.
- The stress of not knowing if this would close or not.
- The $10 in quarters I needed to put in the jar for each curse word I uttered that night.
- Almost ruining the buyer's first vacation in almost 3 years.
- Having to endure my singing and talking to myself during the "2 hour tour".
- The $284 dollar speeding ticket I received on the way back from Port Canaveral
- Visiting with my sister who lives in Viera, FL just south of Port Canaveral.
- Playing the state license plate game with myself.
- Being able to tell the this story,
"This post is a submission to the DocuSign/ActiveRain Electronic Signature Stories Contest. It's possible I will win a prize for writing this post. You could win a prize too by going to the Contest Announcement and sharing your own story"
David Serle
Vice President/Managing Broker
RE/MAX Services
561-912-3500 Office
561-912-3502 Direct
561-756-3104 Mobile
