If you are thinking that email negotiations on real estate deals do not count until you put pen to paper, then think again. Last week a New York state court ruled that “handwriting and email should now basically be considered one and the same”[1]. The ruling comes from the Appellate Division, First Department of State Supreme Court in Manhattan and has been appealed to New York’s Court of Appeals.

The Naldi v. Grunberg case is based around a commercial real estate transaction, but the court ruling also applies to residential transactions. The court considered emails proof of a deal just like any other hard-copy contract because “an e-mail is retrievable from computer storage.” Only if the email contains adequate disclaimers can it be excluded from proof of negotiations, explains Mario J. Suarez, a lawyer in New York. The disclaimer should specifically state that anything in the communications “shall not be deemed an offer, as no documents are binding unless and until executed,” he said. However, you should definitely check your own disclaimer with your own lawyer before relying on it to protect you, and always be careful how you phrase things in email.

Do you think that this ruling is fair? Is it reasonable to make email as binding as any other type of written word?

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Let us know what you think of email content being potentially binding in a contract below. Are you concerned about your own past emails?

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[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/115112/20110222/watch-before-you-email-court-says.htm