THWOMP! The mortgage lender’s counsel drops a five-inch stack of paper in front of an unsuspecting homebuyer fidgeting nervously at a closing table. Two to three hours later, the shell-shocked borrower emerges after scrawling their signature over and over on page after page, their cramped, limp hand now smeared with ink. The purchase of a home or refinance of a loan are usually happy times for the homebuyer/borrower. But nobody would miss the seemingly endless paperwork at the closing table. Which leads to another possibility: the eClosing.
An eClosing is the act of closing a mortgage loan electronically. The eClosing process occurs in a secure electronic environment where some or all closing documents are accessed and executed over the Internet. For now, creating an electronic mortgage loan is typically a hybrid process in which certain key documents (the note, the security interest) are printed onto paper and physically—or “wet”—signed while other documents are signed electronically.
