Real Estate Documents and eSignatures

The Federal Rules

The “Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act” (“E-SIGN Act”) is a more than 10-year-old federal law that validates electronic signatures in transactions affecting interstate or foreign commerce. There are some limited exceptions (such as family law matters and wills), but real estate transactions are specifically covered under the E-SIGN Act’s definition of transactions: “the sale, lease, exchange, or other disposition of any interest in real property, or any combination thereof.”

The E-SIGN Act makes it clear that signatures and contracts in electronic form are valid and may not be denied legal effect. Moreover, the E-Sign Act is technologically neutral, and does not favor any one form of electronic signature. An “electronic signature” can be “an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.” The E-Sign Act pre-empts inconsistent state laws.

How Dotloop’s eSignatures Work

Dotloop’s transaction management software is used by over 1M professionals and 10,000 real estate brokerages and teams in every state (and nearly every province) throughout the United States and Canada. Our solution captures 30+ Million eSignatures annually in real estate alone.

Dotloop is fully compliant under the federal E-SIGN act, and as a result, our signatures are binding in the United States and many other countries. The law is technology neutral and does not favor any one provider, so long as a provider meets compliance standards. In addition to mere compliance with the federal and state laws, dotloop goes to extremes to ensure that our users are protected through comprehensive and secure audit trails and verification processes.

Check out this article to learn more about dotloop’s eSignature verification process.

Dotloop Goes Above and Beyond Mere Compliance

First, every signature is certified and verified to include a unique signature ID, time and date, information about the signer, IP address from the signer’s location and more.

Second, every change made in dotloop is logged and tracked at the field and document level. This information can be retrieved in a number of ways from within the dotloop application.

Third, dotloop enables real-time collaboration, which is actually more secure than any standard PDFsigning solution by managing every version of the real estate transaction in one place. Dotloop has even patented this process in real estate (US Patent # US8375016 B2).

Lastly, since dotloop’s eSignatures are securely embedded into the document itself, every signed document exported from dotloop includes a link in the footer for the purpose of verification and fraud prevention. You can view a sample of that process here . This ensures that if anyone attempts to fraudulently alter a document after it’s been exported from dotloop, we have a record of the most current version.

Our Unique Document Technology for Real Estate

Here at dotloop, we strive to give our users the best experience possible. Because the real estate industry revolves primarily around two things – people and documents – we bring them together in something we call a loop, allowing agents, brokers, teams, clients and services providers to complete the entire transaction, all in one place.

How does that work, exactly? We’re glad you asked! Get started for free today as an agent or get in touch with our team if you’re a real estate broker or team leader.