1. Control your documents. In modern, large-scalecommercial real estate closings, it is quite unusual to have anactual in-person closing with all parties in attendance. More oftenthan not, documents are sent via pdf, with original signature pagesfollowing by overnight delivery to an escrow agent (invariably atitle company), who is charged with closing the subject transactionin compliance with escrow instruction letters sent by allparties.

To the extent possible, you must retain control over yourdocuments to ensure that the latest negotiated revisions arefinalized appropriately and that no inadvertent or intentionalmodifications are made by any other party in the transaction.Accordingly, when circulating documents for execution, be sure topdf, and not forward finalized documents in word format.Additionally, you must always insist that signature pages on alldocuments be broken prior to execution by any party.

Even on relatively simple documents, one never knows what mayarise as an issue in the interim period between actual executionand closing. Many real estate attorneys early in their career havefaced opposing counsel who insists that a modification simplycannot be made to a document since their client has alreadyexecuted such document and is now absolutely unreachable.