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    May 3rd, 2011

    ♫ Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
    And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
    Oh I get by with a little help from my friends… ♫

    Lyrics and Music by Lennon & McCartney, recorded by The Beatles.

    Mandatory e-filing for certain documents in the Land Title Office in British Columbia is coming:

    e-Filing dates

    Moreover, phase 2 of the mandatory e-filing requirements is expected to include subdivision and strata plan applications.

    So what is a lawyer (or notary public in BC) to do? Well you can learn how to file documents electronically in BC. For some lawyers and notaries, this is a given.

    There is no question that the business case for the Land Title and Survey Authority to mandate e-filing (the “Electronic Filing System – EFS”) has been made. EFS offers may advantages to both lawyers as well as to the LTSA. The LTSA needs to update their business processes, it needs to accommodate a large number of staff retirements and it sees the EFS as the way to handle a large number of increasing complex land title and survey submissions. EFS is essential to the LTSA to maintain its service level commitments to the people of BC (full disclosure: the writer sits on the LTSA’s Business Transformation Advisory Committee). Lawyers can prepare documents in advance, submit them with a ‘hold’, have them submitted with a ‘meet’ etc – all electronically.

    However, not everyone adjusts to technology at the same rate. For those lawyers and notaries that only file periodically, they may not have the time, energy or resources to learn the new EFS system, notwithstanding that the LTSA offers free training. What are they to do?

    Fortunately, Dye & Durham has issued a white paper that sets forth how lawyers who do not wish to use the EFS system can continue to file using Dye & Durham’s Land Title Agents via their E-Tray service. I think that this is an important ‘safety valve’. While lawyers and notaries will still be required to prepare their documents electronically and sign them with their Juricert digital signature, they do not have to use the EFS system. Rather, they can send them to Dye & Durham’s ‘E-Tray’ service. There are a number of advantages of doing so:

    I won’t go further into the services and benefits of using Dye & Durham’s E-Tray service, since they have done an excellent job as set out in a White Paper available here.

    What is good to know is that you can still get by with a little help from your friends.

    This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Issues facing Law Firms, Make it Work!, Technology, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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