Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.

ProperSign is a remote real estate transaction closing solution.

Platforms: Browser, iPad

Ideal for: Title companies, all agents and parties to closing activities

Top selling points: Remote online notarization Consumer-friendly UX Scheduling tools Dynamic knowledge-based authentication Top concerns

Simple adoption of digital closings. Although the industry is moving quickly in this direction, buyers and sellers might still be wary.

What you should know

Deals are going digital, whether we like it or not, regardless of the pandemic.

And software like ProperSign is going to help take us there.

The RON-capable, secure signature exchange system sports a very consumer-ready user experience, meaning it makes approachable the very emotionally charged experience of closing on a home. ProperSign is doing for home closings what Turbo Tax did for tax filing. It comes with a smile — over video.

ProperSign emerged from PropLogix, a national title due diligence company based in Sarasota, Florida. Its developer, Chris Abbott, who started as the company’s CTO, built similar remote document signing solutions in the “end of life” environment, such as wills for people who weren’t ambulatory. In other words, he’s not new to making legal deals online.

Because not many companies have CTOs who can also code and lead product launches and because pandemics don’t come around all that often, Abbott’s efforts pushed him into new product development for PropLogix, and ProperSign was born. Now Abbott’s efforts help launch new beginnings instead of, shall we say, the alternative.

It’s a product for title companies, but it has a very buyer and seller feel. The software gives users a full admin panel of upcoming deals, the ability to schedule signings, and complete online Notary Ledger access, the formal journaling of each event notaries are required to keep.

ProperSign uses a drag-and-drop interface to assemble documents for closing, and the software automatically recognizes who needs to sign what and which document requires notarization.

Dynamic KBA, or knowledge-based authentication, is a form of personal verification that uses common knowledge randomly.

Think of it this way: Static KBA knows the questions ahead of time, such as “the name of your first pet.” Dynamic KBA doesn’t tell you ahead of time what it will ask users. It could be about your pet, or it could be your sixth-grade teacher’s name.

The software tracks every field filled in a document with time stamps and names, and users can also use ProperSigh for fully remote signings and hybrid, such as no-touch, in-person closings.

Each notary logging on has a personalized digital notary stamp, and the software auto-scrolls to the field requiring it. The notary can open the signers’ file to verify their identity and ask to see a license on camera for further authentication.

ProperSign can also facilitate on-demand witnesses, which can be any number of on-call, KBA-verified company employees. The company believes that witnesses should be authenticated, as well. If not, then what’s the point?

Abbott said he sees himself as a toolmaker who wants to build something for the industry that’s simple and flexible.

“I’m like a knife manufacturer; you can use what I build to slice meat or carve wood,” he said during our demo.

In-house administrators have full access to all signing events, documentations, user permissions and storage configurations. Closing packages stay on local servers for 120 days, then ProperSign sends them to Amazon Web Services for long-term secure storage.

In essence, ProperSign is a remote online notarization operating system. I see little reason it won’t become a preferred partner to large multiple listing services once it’s able to close in more states.

An iPad app should up and running soon, followed by a mobile app that can accommodate digital wet signatures.

In an email to Inman, PropLogix’s Marketing Strategist, Lindsey Gordon, wrote that the company is growing quickly to handle the need for remote closings.

“At this point, we have over 200 employees, and we’re hiring for more than 30 positions to help us meet the demand for our service offerings and support this new product,” she said.

ProperSign soft-launched in Florida on July 17.

Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe

Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.

Source: click here