Can You Close On a House Remotely?

For example, a limited power of attorney may specify that the trusted individual will have the power to act on the owner’s behalf only as it relates to the sale of the specific property. Sometimes, the limited power of attorney may also specify a minimum price or other terms that the seller would accept.

As long as the person you are granting the power of attorney to is someone you intimately trust, then this is one of the easiest ways to sell a home remotely simply because you won’t need to do anything. You won’t be required to sign or do anything prior to or at closing because your trusted agent will be doing it on your behalf.

Closings with online notaries are a relatively new phenomenon in real estate, and has only recently become more customary and acceptable after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since many government authorities restricted in-person activities during the pandemic, closings still had to happen and as a result many new laws and regulations came about allowing online notaries for real estate closings.

For example, your typical online notary experience will start with identity verification with the notaries and the signers both being visible to each other via video-conference.

The notary will check and verify the signer’s identity documents through video-conference, after which the signer may be asked to answer a series of automatically generated questions to further verify their identity.

These questions will be similar to the questions that other services ask to verify identity, usually pulled from public records (i.e. which of the following addresses have you ever been associated with?).

Once the signer’s identity has been verified, the relevant documents that need to be notarized are e-signed by the signer, typically within the same online notary web application.

Pro Tip: The only downside we’ve seen with these services is that because the documents are prepared in advance to save time, signers are often pushed to the signature page and asked to e-sign without being given enough time to peruse the full document that they are signing.

Often times these days, closings are done most easily through a combination of both wet and dry signatures. For example, your attorney may send you a bunch of less important documents such as disclosure forms to e-sign (i.e. dry signature). This way, you can get at least some of the paperwork completed at home and on your own schedule.

Then, for the most important documents such as the Florida warranty deed, HUD-1 closing statement or Closing Disclosure where a notarized and/or wet signature is necessary, you can schedule a convenient time for you to stop by the attorney’s office to sign-in person.

This actually makes real estate closings a lot easier to schedule and get done vs the traditional method, where everyone had to find time in their schedule to meet in person at the same office to “close.”

This way, the buyer can find a time that works for them to go sign in-person at their local attorney’s office, and the seller can find a time that works to sign in-person at their respective attorney’s office. This can be done asynchronously across vast geographic distances, which makes closing a lot easier to get done these days.

Of course, this article wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t do a quick recap of the traditional, in-person closing day event that everyone used to do.

Remember that one of the joys of closing in-person is to celebrate what sometimes was a difficult and emotional process, and it’s an opportunity for Realtors to personally congratulate their clients and to hand the buyer the keys to their new home.

Norms vary based on the state the transaction takes place.

In the off-chance that the buyer’s attorney’s office is more conveniently located for all parties, the seller’s attorney may agree to hold the closing there instead. Alternatively, the title insurance company’s office may also host the closing when it’s more conveniently located.

In Florida where there is typically only one attorney, the Florida closing attorney will host the closing at his or her office.