Electronic Real Estate Documents: Context, Unresolved Cost-Benefit Issues and a Recommended Decisional Process
![handle is hein.journals/wnelr24 and id is 211 raw text is: Volume 24 WESTERN NEW ENGLAND
Issue 2
2002 LAW REVIEW
ELECTRONIC REAL ESTATE DOCUMENTS:
CONTEXT, UNRESOLVED COST-BENEFIT
ISSUES AND A RECOMMENDED
DECISIONAL PROCESS
SAM STONEFIELD*
Electronic documents will soon begin to replace paper docu-
ments in many if not all phases of residential real estate transac-
tions.1 This transition from paper to electronic documents will
occur for the same reasons that papyrus rolls replaced clay tablets
several thousand years ago: as familiarity and acceptance builds and
the technology improves, the advantages of the newly available me-
dium will far outweigh the costs and disadvantages.2 There will be
* Professor of Law, Western New England College School of Law. A.B., 1967,
Dartmouth College; J.D., 1971, Harvard University. I would particularly like to thank
former Western New England College School of Law Dean Donald J. Dunn and cur-
rent Dean Arthur S. Gaudio for their personal and institutional encouragement and
support of the conference and this article.
1. For purposes of this essay, an electronic document is, under the Federal Elec-
tronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, an electronic record, which
is a document created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by elec-
tronic means. 15 U.S.C. § 7006(4) (2000) [E-SIGN]. The technical specifications for
electronic real estate documents will likely follow those being set by the Mortgage In-
dustry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), using the XHTML language
standard with standardized fields for data entry. http//:www.mismo.org. Documents
using the MISMO standards are being referred to as SMART documents (Searchable,
Manageable, Archivable, Retrievable, and Transferable). Id.
2. When the Aramaic language and alphabet arose in the 6th century B.C., the
clay tablet book declined because clay was less suited than papyrus to the Aramaic [as
opposed to cuneiform] characters. 26 THE NEw ENCYCLOPEDIA BRIrANICA, 459
(1990). Another lesson from ancient history is that clay tablets and papyrus coexisted](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/wnelr24&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Electronic Real Estate Documents: Context, Unresolved Cost-Benefit Issues and a Recommended Decisional Process
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most