Now It's the Law - Don't Trash Those Emails!

We're all using email extensively in working with prospects and clients. We also carry risk of litigation in various activities of our real estate operations. There are federal regulations involving fair housing, environmental and other issues.

As of this week, the federal government announced that the Supreme Court had approved their new regulations requiring archiving and disclosure of electronic documents.

Deleting emails, even those you might think unimportant, could come back to haunt you. There is even an example stating that a company could be guilty of "virtual shredding" of emails if they were deleted or even over-written by a new media backup.

If you use Outlook for email, you may want to check out Adobe Acrobat (Buy Direct). Acrobat will allow fast archiving of whole Outlook email folders, with easy access for retrieval. Just build a folder for each transaction and use "rules" to have all transaction emails filed automatically.