E-MAILS: ARCHIVE, BUT DON’T DELETE

August 17th, 2012 at 7:09 pm

As you know, with our market improving, we have seen an increase in multiple offers. In the course of these transactions, we have had a number of instances where multiple buyers believe they have an enforceable contract for the same home. For example, this week we have been dealing with a dispute involving the following facts, occurring in the following order: (1) Buyer No. 1 made an offer for the property; (2) Seller countered to Buyer No. 1; (3) Buyer No. 1 signed counter no. 1 and returned it to his agent; (4) The selling agent did NOT return the signed counter to our listing agent; (5) Buyer No. 2 made an offer for the property; (6) The seller, through our listing agent, rescinded the original counter to Buyer No. 1 and reissued a multiple counter offer; and (7) Buyer No. 1 returned the signed version of counter offer no. 1. Buyer No. 1 now claims that he has a contract for the property and the seller wants to sell to Buyer No. 2. Of course, this dispute is answered by a very simple question: Was counter no. 1 rescinded before Buyer No. 1’s signed acceptance was returned to the listing agent. After all, acceptance requires Buyer No. 1’s signature and delivery back to the seller, and the seller was entitled to rescind until that acceptance was received. Since all these documents were sent by e-mail, I asked to see them so the timing of each step would be clear.

In response to my request, I received scanned copies of the e-mails which had been printed out and placed in the transaction file. I was not forwarded electronic versions of the e-mails themselves. When I asked why that was the case, I was told that our agent had a policy of printing out business e-mails, putting the hard copy in the file and then deleting the electronic version. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that hard copies of the e-mails and attachments were in our file. That is what you should be doing to maintain a complete file in these days of electronic communication. Additionally, however, I believe you should keep all e-mails sent and received in the course of your business. As you can see from the example above, e-mails are often central to explaining what happened in a transaction or to our defense of a claim against us. While putting a hard copy in the file is often good enough to provide the protection needed, maintaining the electronic copy is also smart for various reasons. First, a hard copy file, or more commonly, a single piece of paper, can be lost or destroyed. Therefore, having the electronic version is a good backup. Furthermore, finding an e-mail is often much easier than finding a hard copy. If we have an issue with a particular property, all you have to do is search your e-mail for that address and you will most likely find what you need. To get the hard copy, we first have to retrieve the file from storage and then manually search through it. Again, while maintaining a complete file is needed, the e-mail backup can only help make our search easier.

So, don’t delete any business e-mails. Instead, after you print them out and put them in the file, move them to your archive folders. Those folders can be organized however you want (by deal, by year, etc.) and do not affect the use of your main inbox. And, of course, they can easily be searched. That is exactly what I do and I can’t tell you how often I have been able to find an important e-mail from years ago. So please, don’t delete anything. Archive instead.

As always, let us know if you have any questions

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