by Stuart 

When I began my wonderful business, a real estate contract was one legal page.  I thought I’d go mad with techie overload when they started using “NCR” copies instead of carbon paper between pages!

 

Back then, to assure your clear title to the house, your attorney would read an “abstract,” a history of each conveyance.  Sitting Bull sold to General Palmer, who sold to Jeremiah Jones, who sold to…..

 

As time passed (translate: people sued each other for idiotic reasons) we kept adding new paragraphs.  The contract grew longer,  and more complicated.

 

Imagine my excitement when the “Paperwork Reduction Act” was passed.”  My first “paperless closing” actually required one signed piece of paper.  All went smoothly.  The parties signed on a pad with a stylus. That grating sound of trees being cut down to make paper for real estate closings was over!

 

Not so fast.   We’ve closed hundreds of homes since, none paperless. After a few years, I quit complaining about the expansion of documents. To my clients, I say “understand what you’re signing…but if you don’t sign, you don’t get the loan.”

 

“Closers” at a title company are unique individuals who (among many duties) put together the technical aspects of your documents, put up with us real estate brokers, know how to explain complicated things in ways we understand, AND pull out crayons for the kids (of any age) who are getting cranky. 

 

At a recent closing, my closer and friend Stef at Land Title announced that we had reached a new level of absurdity.  The lender would not “fund”  the closing until Stef printed and faxed them one hundred and fifty nine (159) pages of loan documents alone.   Buyers need a copy.  I assume the lender then prints one hundred and fifty (159) pages  to review them.  You get the picture.

 

Of course, these documents are verrrrrry important.  I asked some of my favorite closers what they would classify as “most idiotic closing document.”  Another closer says that’s easy…it’s the “cell phone disclosure.”  It says that if the buyer has given the lender their cell phone number as a contact point, and a call from the lender results in an overage on the buyer’s phone bill, then the lender is not responsible for the overage charges.  Duhhhh.

 

Stef  thinks “most idiotic” is the signature affidavit.  It says you sign on line one to say that is your signature and then you sign on line two that you are the person who signed line one. Other closers laugh at the form that discloses that you will be reported to the credit bureau if you miss a payment…or  the form that says the lender can contact you after closing (did I say duhhhh?). I got a hundred of’em.

 

This would all be hilarious except that YOU are paying for these absurdities.  Each lawyerly phrase, each piece of paper, costs money..millions of times a year.  Even that cost pales in comparison to the time those sainted closers spend, with a straight face, saying “no, really, it says if your lender calls your cell phone……” 

% + or -