Illinois law requires you to send certain documents when a loan is paid off. As to mortgages, you must execute and deliver a release of the mortgage to the mortgagor or to the county recorder. 765 ILCS 905/2. The release must be delivered within one month after the payment of the debt. 765 ILCS 905/4. As to vehicle loans, you must deliver a release of the security interest and the vehicle’s certificate of title within twenty-one days after receiving payment to satisfy the loan. 625 ILCS 5/3-205. (If the payment is made in cash, cashier’s check, or certified check, that time limit is reduced from twenty-one days to ten business days. Id.) And, of course, you should comply with any other notice requirements in your loan agreements.

It may be possible to send the required releases and certificates of title electronically. The Illinois Financial Institutions Electronic Documents and Digital Signature Act and the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (ESIGN) Act allow banks to send “information relating to a transaction” required by law in electronic form (after sending the required notices and obtaining the consumer’s consent). 205 ILCS 705/10(c)15 USC 7001. And, the Illinois law states that any documents that a bank possesses, records, or generates in electronic form “in the regular course of business” have the same force and effect as the documents would in paper form. 205 ILCS 705/10(a). Therefore, we believe that you could send the required releases and certificates of title in electronic form — provided that you follow the notice and consent requirements and provided that you generate or reproduce those documents electronically “in the regular course of business.”