Covid-19 and Golbey Law’s Processes
With so much going on, each day feels like a month. What appears best practice today may change tomorrow. We know this can be extremely stressful and we’re doing our best to minimize that stress.
Here’s how we’re working together with you.
We’re open.
We have reduced staffing in our office, but we’re here. That means we may not have someone to greet you at reception, but we’ll take good care of you nonetheless. If you’re uncertain, give us a call or drop us an e-mail. We answer the phones and we check our emails.
Real Estate and Wills
We’ll work with you. We try to do most of our work remotely. If you’re stressed, reach out to us.
If you’re a buyer, seller, realtor, mortgage broker, or other real estate professional, and you have questions about your deal, reach out to us.
We’ll e-mail, get on a call, or get on a video chat. Our preferred vidoe chat programs are Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams.
Sign-Ups
In most cases, we need a face to face meeting to witness land title documents, like transfers and mortgages. But, we’ll try to do as much as we can remotely. This means we’ll meet you via video chat to go through your deal and the documents. We’ll then arrange for you to come in to sign documents, unless other arrangements have been made.
Good news. We’re storefront.
We’re prepared to have contact-less signings. We’ve done this many times and it has worked well. We have a couple of effective ways to get your personal signature.
1. Step Inside Our Office.
At your request, we can set up a table at our front reception. Signing space will be 3 meters from our witness (2 witnesses for wills), who will sit at reception.
We will have documents prepared and ready at this table, along with an untouched pen for each of you (which you get to keep – and they’re great quality). We will sanitize the table between meetings.
Otherwise, we’re meeting in our boardroom. We sanitize everything between meetings. We have untouched pens (which you get to keep – and they’re great quality).
2. Mail Drop
We can witness documents through the glass front door. We can exchange documents through our mail slot.
Bring your own pen, or we can provide an untouched pen for each of you (which you get to keep – did we mention they’re great quality?).
Closing Funds
If you need to get money to us, you can:
- Bring a bank draft and step inside or use the mail drop (make sure we’re there or are expecting your mail-drop); or
- Direct deposit into our trust account. But, we need advance e-mail notice and you must send us a photo of your bank draft and the deposit slip. Ordinary cheques will not suffice.
Legal Advice and Document Review
For all real estate and wills, we’re going to meet via video chat prior to signing documents.
For video chat, we prefer to use google meet, google hangouts, zoom, or teams. By now, you’ve probably used one of these, but if not, we can guide you. If you’re using gmail, you may already have Google Hangouts or Meet. If you would like to use Zoom or Teams, please set it up on your computer at least 30 minutes before our video meeting. We’ll invite you to the online meeting.
Business Law
We’re working – partly from home and partly from the office. We believe most, if not all, business transactions can be handled without a physical meeting. This will be case-by-case and we’re open and flexible to the changing landscape.
Our Schedule for e-meetings
We ask that you be flexible and work on our schedule. We’ll try to accommodate, but we would appreciate your flexibility.
ID
In all cases, please take a photo of the front and back of 2 pieces of ID and e-mail it to us, in advance. A photo with your phone is fine.
This may change. What won’t change is this – we’re on your side. If you’re uncertain, reach out to us.
Your Golbey Law Team