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Special Reports
Electronic Documents, Paperless
Loans
Title Company Urges Realtors to 'Close Green'
By Brad Finkelstein
DENVER -- It is a well-known complaint that the home sales process is very paper-intensive.
What is not as well known is that much of that paper has to be stored for years because of legal and regulatory
requirements.
However, one local title company is doing its part to reduce the amount of paper
used, cutting storage and document destruction costs, and helping the environment at the same time by giving away
trees to replace those lost.
Land Title Guarantee Co. here is urging its Realtor clients to "Close Green"
and use e-mailed paperless transactions for commitments to insure, corresponding documents and the like.
Zoe Sawyer, vice president of associate development for Re/Max Southeast here,
commented, "In a typical month, we receive on average 300 title commitments on the listing and buying side.
The amount of paperwork is outrageous. When the initial title work with the corresponding decks of covenant is
delivered, it's as big as the Metro Denver yellow pages.
"Then, that individual hand-delivered set of documents requires our telephone
follow up to corroborate receipt by all parties to the transaction to ensure we have fully complied with all contractual
terms. That's a time-consuming, labor-intensive process and, for the most part, an unrecoverable operating expense."
Land Title's corporate customer support manager, Shelly DeWitt, noted that a transaction
could contain between 100 and 500 pieces of paper, depending on the complexity. The company was trying to find
a way to make the transaction easier for its clients.
This group, she continued, is very technology savvy and Land Title was looking
to give them increased accessibility to data.
A secondary focus was to create efficiencies in storing the documents. Document
storage is a major cost for its clients. The Colorado Real Estate Commission requires real estate brokers to keep
four years of transactions in storage. Many local Realtors charge their brokers fees to help cover the expense.
Among the keys that allowed Land Title to make this process possible is that it
has created library image technology, Ms. DeWitt said. With the images of the records on file, the company is able
to create an electronic document. Delivery is much quicker. The file is accessible as soon as the search is finished
and the commitment is issued. Previously the file was not available for viewing until it was faxed or delivered
to the interested parties.
Brian Hamilton, senior vice president, Land Title, said, "We now can provide
24-hour access to all linked documents online including 24-month chain of title, tax certificates, vesting deeds,
B-2 exceptions and plat maps. We're providing immediate delivery of all pertinent documents as soon as they're
available to eliminate any delays from couriers or overnight delivery.
"Our exclusive new TMX system enables our clients to access and manage every
aspect of their transaction online so they benefit from streamlined communication, ease of ordering, convenient
information retrieval and access to live updates. We're changing the face of the 'old gray lady' of the title industry
by giving her a technological facelift to reflect the tech-savvy homebuyer demographics." Instead of having
to go through paper files when digging up an old transaction, users will just have to pop in a CD into their computer.
Another issue is that Colorado has one of the worst paper recycling records in
the United States, with only 3% to 10% of paper waste recovered for recycling.
To do its part, Land Title is teaming up with the National Arbor Day Foundation
and Denver's ReThink Recycling Program to give to sellers and buyers a free blue spruce sapling if the Realtor
to the seller or buyer has elected to receive linked title commitments instead of hand-delivered paper.
Ms. DeWitt said the sapling program has been successful beyond what the company
thought. Mr. Hamilton is quoted as saying the company estimates it will have given away some 10,000 blue spruce
trees by October.
"If we can covert just 10,000 closings a year to paperless at Land Title,
we can save at least 35 tons of paper in our Denver offices alone and make every online closing faster, less expensive
and more efficient," Mr. Hamilton said.
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