Electronic Documents for Real Estate Transactions – Yes Folks, It Is Here!

There has been a lot of buzz online the past couple of years about planned amendments to the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA), 2000. The 2013 provincial budget included provisions to achieve the goal of bringing electronic real estate agreements to Ontario. Many organizations have been vocal in support of these amendments including but not limited to OREA.

The amendments will extend the legal protections of the ECA to include electronic real estate agreements of purchase and sale. This is according to a press release made last summer by OREA. "This amendment means that REALTORS® and consumers will soon have the confidence to use technology that improves the speed, efficiency and reliability of real estate transactions," said Phil Dorner, a Windsor area REALTOR® and president of OREA.

Currently when you work on a real estate transaction, documents like new client agreements, offers, agreements of purchase and sale, etc… have to be signed, scanned, emailed, faxed and even driven back and forth – a number of times before the ultimate deal is done. This is time-consuming for the buyer, seller and both agents.

Electronic agreements stand to improve the efficiency of any given real estate transaction by reducing the time required to complete a deal by making it legal for parties to sign documents electronically, like on a tablet for example.

It is in this spirit that the Teranet team created ViMO. ViMO is a mobile app that offers the capability for real estate sales professionals to:

·        Create, sign and manage electronic forms within the app, right from their iPad.

·        Access electronic forms and create, sign, store, manage and transmit your electronic documents.

Signing and sending electronic forms is just one of the many capabilities available in the ViMO app. With that said the government’s push to see the introduction of electronic forms in real estate in Ontario is a long time coming. Real estate sales professionals in other provinces have long enjoyed this capability. Enabling Ontario real estate sales professionals to sign and negotiate electronic forms will only give them an edge in an already extremely competitive industry.

Additionally, think about how significantly this will ease the process of the back and forth that occurs with purchase and sale agreements, especially when coupled with the ability to sign and electronically store new listing agreements, client agreements as well as other important documents associated to a deal. The amendments to the ECA as well as innovations like the ViMO app make moving towards a paperless, more efficient back office system a reality.

For more information about ViMO please visit www.myvimo.ca.