Does anyone have any advice on how to provide early mortgage disclosures (Servicing Disclosure Statement, Appraisal Notice, early TIL, GFE) via e-mail in compliance with E-Sign? I know we have some lenders doing this, so I need to figure out how we can do it legally. Are many mortgage lenders doing this?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I would start with whether or not your e-mail is encrypted.

Unless these are courtesy copies and traditional paper docs are also delivered within regulatory time limits, you have several systemic violations of TILA and RESPA. E-delivered docs only "count" when you have the applicant's informed consent in advance. If the e-deliveries don't count, then it's just like you never gave the disclosures at all! The only way to get e-deliveries to count is to follow ESIGN's opt-in procedures.

This is more complicated than your lenders realize. Your very best bet is to purchase a copy of Andy's seminar on this topic. Go through it once by yourself to get a firm grip on the principles involved and to consider what's the best fit for your business needs. Then, get one of the lenders appointed to what will become a small implementation task force. Have him/her review the seminar with you and lay out a rough plan. Next, the two of you can bring in your attorney (to draft the formal e-delivery agreements), operations/dp (to assure that the technology will support your business decisions), marketing (so you get the highest level of customer acceptance), and audit (to be sure you're creating a system that can be tested easily.)

Thanks to both Randy and Richard. I realize that we will need to check into encryption and that we have an out of compliance situation. I've attended e-delivery webinars in the past and have been on implementation teams for the "pull" method involving e-statements. Where I'm a little befuddled is regarding e-mail delivery of disclosures. In pondering this over the weekend, I came up with a process I thought might work--I would appreciate your thoughts. Suppose we build a template e-mail message that includes all of the E-Sign disclosures, send that message to our applicant along with an attached application (or other test document)in pdf format instructing the applicant to sign and return the document to us to indicate consent to receive application disclosures electronically. By doing so, he demonstrates that he can retrieve and print PDF files, and we can then e-mail the other disclosures in PDF format (encrypted). Thoughts?

The wet signature doesn't get you much--other than maybe some peace of mind. Your plan covers the "demonstration of ability to access" part of ESIGN, but not the other part of that test--which is that the demonstration must be handled electronically.

If you can add the ESIGN disclosures, instructions, a "mailto" link, and a subject of "I want e-delivery" to the pdf test document, then when it's submitted there would be no question.

Got it! Thanks for filling in the missing piece of the puzzle. At least I have something I can suggest that we can start working with.