Real Estate Sales/Lease Process: Does your eSignature and workflow automation solution hold up?

For most real estate brokers and agents, long gone are the days where more time was spent paper chasing than with customers. Over the last decade, the real estate market has seen many improvements in the buyer experience, thanks to the use of technology. The industry is now using everything from virtual reality, 3D mapping, aerial drone photography, as well as eSignature and digital transaction management solutions to digitize contracts and the real estate sales and lease process. Whether you are a buyer/seller, broker, real estate agent, home inspector or real estate appraiser, these technologies are probably already impacting how you conduct business.

For those professionals in the real estate space who are already using eSignature/ digital signature software along with a digital transaction management (DTM) solution, you may feel that you are set and you do not need to adopt other technologies. For those who are not currently using an eSignature solution along with a DTM solution, you may be researching the best solution for your business, along with the benefits of a DTM solution. Others just use the eSignature solution provided by their business.

Now, what if you found out that your current solution may not have you covered long term? Specifically, in order to authenticate a signature that has been placed on a document, eSignature solutions often use something called a third party certificate. The third party certificate does not validate the person, his / her signature or if it was done with / without their permission, it only validates the ‘act’ of placing an unverified signature on the document. Digital certificates have a two year validity and eSignature providers using these third party certificates build in the cost of renewing the digital certificates for each of your documents that you have signed in your annual license cost. Essentially, this means that without your knowledge, eSignature solutions are binding you to use only their solutions, otherwise the digital certificates on your documents will expire within two years (or less) after you cease using their service. If for any reason you would need to take that document to court or need to validate it at a government agency, you would have to ensure the digital certificate thus meaning that you would have to go back to the solution you signed the document with and pay the arrears from the time when you stopped using the solution to when you needed your document certified. Needless to say, 10 years into a 30 year mortgage if something were to occur and documents needed to be certified for a pending legal action or civil dispute this would present a very expensive problem. However, ZorroSign solves this problem by issuing our own security certificates with our proprietary patented technology, whereby these certificates remain accessible for life, which we call our ‘lifetime escrow,’ even if you are no longer a customer.

As a digital disruptor, ZorroSign wants to highlight to users where there can be major gaps, specifically in security and service within their current eSignature and DTM solutions. Electronic signature solutions are here to stay and the acceptability and use will only increase over time, however, using the right solution which can validate the signature, authenticate the user and confirm the signature was placed with the knowledge of the authenticated user is what will really matter in the future. As a result, understanding digital security certificates is important, and having an eSign solution with a lifetime document certificate that is included as part of the service is imperative for long term piece of mind and future cost abatement.

Your company may already offer you an eSign solution for free, but with ZorroSign you can feel confident in knowing you are using the real esignature patented technology built into an advanced DTM along with a lifetime digital certificate. This will allow you to close residential and commercial real estate deals faster and more securely. If you are not convinced, sign up here for a free trial and try it yourself.