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Are you keeping track of your emails

By
Real Estate Agent with Irongate Realtors

Are you keeping track of your emails?  On a recent closed transaction, the buyer and seller had a dispute over a broken pool part that might/might not have occurred during the winter prior to closing. Eventually lawyers were involved and the dispute came back on the Realtors.  The only thing the lawyer wanted from us was a copy of our emails AND the timethe emails were sent and received.  Fortunately we have an email file for every client and we were able to present all of the info requested by the attorney.  Before sending the emails to the attorney we  reviewed all of them and were  relieved they only stated facts not opinions or editorials from us (lucky).  

 

So short sweet....

 

Save your emails on all clients

Make sure your computer clocks are correct.

Remember an email can be used for you or against you legally.

If you are uncertain do not write it.

Roberta LaRocca
Simply Vegas Real Estate - Las Vegas, NV
REALTOR®, Broker, Salesperson, NV. Lic BS.507
Julie, Great advice!  I do save all client emails but I wasn't sure why.  Thanks for letting me know!
Dec 12, 2007 04:24 PM
Lupe Soto-Realtor
Premier Realty Assoc - Los Angeles, CA
Listing, Selling Burbank, San Fernando Valley LA

 

Julie, good post.  not only saving emails also, saving fax transmission sheets and any communication in writing.  thanks for sharing this experience with us.  greetings from Burbank CA

Dec 12, 2007 04:24 PM
Karen Anne Stone
New Home Hunters of Fort Worth and Tarrant County - Fort Worth, TX
Fort Worth Real Estate
Hi Julie:  It is always best to document anything and everything that happens in a transaction.  Even notes on telephone calls... methodically saved... can do wonders when the attorneys come asking for proof of this or that.  Great suggestion.  Thanks for sharing.   Go Buckeyes !
Dec 12, 2007 04:26 PM
Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL
Daytona Condo Realty, 386-405-4408 - Daytona Beach, FL
Buy Daytona condos for heavenly good prices

Good reminder. Thank you. Do not write what you do not want the attorney to see, or what can hurt you should attorneys get involved.

Though I might be guilty of not being careful.

Dec 12, 2007 04:27 PM
Gary Bland R (S) E-Pro, ABR
Hawaii Life Real Estate Brokers - Wailea, HI
I actually have done this for many years now because of items like this.  It is always better to be safe than sorry. Great Post, hope many learn from it.
Dec 12, 2007 04:27 PM
Julie Beall
Irongate Realtors - Springboro, OH
CRS
thanks for the quick comments. The thing that surprised me most was not so much the date but the actual time of day of each email. The attorney wanted the time stamp...check those computer clocks.
Dec 12, 2007 04:33 PM
Mary Warren
Las Vegas, NV
I also keep an e-mail file for each client...after closing I then save the e-mails to the closing file in my documents and then burn a copy to a CD for my client to have. 
Dec 12, 2007 04:34 PM
Wayne B. Pruner
Oregon First - Tigard, OR
Tigard Oregon Homes for Sale, Realtor, GRI
Must have been a heck of a pool part to get lawyers involved! I too have all my emails in a separate folder for each client. I also assign a color code to each clients emails.
Dec 12, 2007 04:46 PM
Deborah Burns ~ Seattle Real Estate Agent
Realty Executives -BRIO - Seattle, WA

Good point Julie!  I have been trying to keep my emails on clients, unfortunately my company has only a certain level of memory for agents and I am at the ceiling for my allocated memory, and have been for several months.  Just today I could not receive a scanned invoice to my email to forward on to one of my clients.  To receive it I had to delete emails...argh! 

I have opened a gmail account and plan on forwarding (manually) my saved emails, but this is going to be a project.  I am considering not using my company account anymore because of how limited it is being.  there used to be a way of doing it automatically, but not anymore.   

Dec 12, 2007 05:12 PM
Anonymous
Anonymous
Julie-that is a great reminder for all of us.  E-mails are correspondance, too.  I used to print all of them and keep them in my client's file and now I make a file for each of my clients on my computer and keep them in their.  You never know when you will need them.
Dec 12, 2007 09:27 PM
#10
Sarah Greene
Greene Business Support Services - Smyrna, DE
NAR Certified REPA
An online transaction management program like Relay or TransactionPoint can be really handy in this type of situation. All online transaction management programs include audit trails and date/time stamps so everything that happens with that transaction can be captured and you will know who did what and when. TransactionPoint even has email within the program so you can send emails directly from the transaction management program. When the transaction is closed you can archive all the details of the transaction on cd for easy reference.
Dec 12, 2007 10:57 PM
Dale Campbell
Virginia Real Estate - Mechanicsville, VA
Julie - I agree with Sarah and I use Relay also.  Great reminder on the importance of keeping great records!
Dec 13, 2007 12:38 AM
Mary Richards
Reece & Nichols Realtors - Kansas City, MO
Mary Richards

Great reminder Julie!  It is important that we document our correspondence.  Now more than ever.

Dec 13, 2007 12:50 AM
Jon Higgins
Century 21 Elite Performance - Springboro, OH
ABR
Julie - great post.  Restraint of pen and tongue?  Keeping e-mails short and concise is very wise. 
Dec 14, 2007 02:40 AM