North Carolina made history last week when it hosted its first paperless, all-electronic e-closing in the state.
What’s more, it was only the fifth all-electronic e-closing in the U.S.
The e-closing – which was made possible by Investors Title Insurance Company of Chapel Hill, mortgage document management provider DocMagic and e-notarization firm World Wide Notary – came when Jason and Karen Boccardi of Raleigh refinanced the mortgage on their Winston-Salem property. The one thing missing was the closing paperwork.
That’s because there was no paperwork.
“This was our first North Carolina e-closing,” Elaine F. Marshall, secretary of state for North Carolina, says in a statement. “[And] it is not our last. We want this to become a regular option for lenders and their customers because of the many advantages e-closing offers versus the slower, traditional paper-based system.”
Marshall has been a leading advocate for modernizing traditional business practices in North Carolina so the state can better compete at the national and international levels. She and her agency have led the charge, along with many North Carolina county registers of deeds, to do more paper-free electronic recordings of government-required filings and land records, according to a release from the secretary of state’s office.
As the notary public regulator in North Carolina, the secretary of state’s office has developed the standards and curriculum for the electronic notary status, often called e-notary. A notary public with this status can attach a digital version of its notary stamp to electronic legal transactions, making them legally the same as paper-based filings requiring a notarized document.
“The e-notary is essential to moving legal filings into the digital age,” Marshall says in the release. “People and institutions still want to know that a notary was there in the room confirming the signer’s identity even if the filing is moving through cyberspace instead of being a pile of paper.”
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