After issuing a statewide stay-at-home order restricting trips out of the home with the exception of “essential” purposes, Gov. Larry Hogan authorized Monday the use of technology to facilitate real estate closings and document notarization.
The decision, which thousands called for in a online petition earlier this month, now allows individuals who perform “notarial acts” to conduct services with real time, visual communication devices after verifying their identification with a “government identification credential” such as a driver’s license or passport.
The announcement comes as a relief for many in the state’s real estate and title industries, who previously implored the governor to deem the industry as “essential” but also sought ways to limit employees’ contact with others amid the coronavirus outbreak. The highly contagious upper respiratory disease, which according to Johns Hopkins University has sickened over 800,000 people worldwide and killed some 39,000 patients in its wake, continues to wreak physical and financial havoc as it overwhelms hospital systems and slows down the global economy in tandem.
Much of Maryland’s workforce had already transitioned to teleworking. But Maryland real estate professionals worried that state law allowing electronic procedures — set to go into effect in October — would not be made available to them in time to prevent the disease from spreading across their industry and to their clients.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Hallie Miller over at the Baltimore Sun