Law Technology

My Tip for the Day: Don?t Create Stupid Rules

By Bryan

My wife and I are in the process of refinancing some rental property that we own. Because we have all of our information in a digital format, we were able to send our financial info, tax info, etc., to the bank electronically. In response, the bank sent us an application that they wanted us to complete and sign. The app was emailed to use. My wife completed and we each simply stamped our signatures on the application and returned it to the bank. I am sure that this was not what the bank anticipated when they asked for our signatures, but I wasn’t terribly concerned about this.

This morning, we get an email from the bank. They can’t process our loan applications because we didn’t initial a line that appears just above our signatures. Yes, that is right. They have no problems with the signatures. But they must have actual written initials on the page before they can actually do anything with our application.

When the loan officer was asked for the reason for this. He admitted that he didn’t know why this was required. He just knew that it was.

I want to emphasize that this was an initial on a separate page to verify the info there, or anything like that. No, it was initials directly above our signatures.

The point I want to make here is that when you create rules, you should make sure that the rules have some rational basis or justification. Don’t create rules that must be blindly followed simply because someone once thought up the rule.

Full post as published by The Connected Lawyer on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).