Today we’re excited to announce Doormat, an online real estate lawyer to help Ontarians complete their real estate transactions. Think of Doormat as the last mile of a property purchase or sale. With Doormat you can complete your transaction from anywhere on your phone, tablet, or computer. Yes, we have real lawyers, but we don’t have the lawyer office visits, confusing pricing, and long email chains.
If you want to buy or sell real estate in Ontario you’ll need a lawyer. Real estate lawyers perform a crucial function in every property transaction, however, the experience lawyers provide to clients has not changed for decades. Doormat is on a mission to change that by making real estate transactions dead simple.
Why we’re building Doormat
Over the last decade there has been a huge trend towards digitizing almost everything. And it’s for good reason, digital products have dramatically improved and simplified user experiences. What used to be printing out tax forms every year is now answering some questions on your computer with TurboTax. Sending and investing money used to involve going to the bank every time, now we just do it from our phones. How about getting a taxi? You get the point.
Not everything is treated equally though, and when we went through the process of buying our properties, it was apparent that the legal industry is falling behind in terms of simplification and digitization. So, that’s what ultimately sparked the idea and formed the mission we’re on. We really believe there is an opportunity to create an amazing experience around one of the biggest transactions of people's lives without the stress and headaches that have historically come with it.
The Doormat experience
When you use Doormat, your real estate transaction is organized and completed all from within your personalized dashboard. You are walked through the process step by step, starting with some simple questions to better understand your situation.
With a traditional real estate lawyer, information and documents are shared via phone, email, and sometimes even fax - not with Doormat. We collect all the information we need from you through tasks made available to you in your dashboard. For example, verifying your identity, signing your closing documents and sharing your insurance details. Don’t worry about missing anything, we’ll send you regular updates and notifications when there is something you need to do.
On top of prompting you to complete the necessary tasks to close on your property, Doormat has an interactive set of recommendations to help you with your move and a list of deals for you to take advantage of. Moving is a big project, so use our set of recommendations to stay on track. It’s also expensive, so take advantage of the deals we have with a collection of great brands for things like moving services, furniture, home inspections, insurance and more!
When your closing day arrives, you’ll get a real time tracker to keep you up to date with what is happening at every step. We’ll send you notifications throughout the day, so all you need to do is sit back and relax while we transfer the ownership of your property. Don’t be left guessing when you’ll get the keys to your new place.
Once your closing is complete, information on how to get your keys will be sent to you and be visible in your dashboard. A couple of weeks later we’ll fully close your transaction by uploading your reporting letter and everything will be accessible to you at any time in the future!
The team behind Doormat
Doormat is founded by a well rounded group with legal, engineering, and business expertise. Robert, our CEO, was previously a senior software engineer at Shopify and has a deep passion around building delightful, well designed products. Ben, our CLO, is a very experienced lawyer that’s closed thousands of real estate transactions in Ontario. Joel, our COO, is an experienced entrepreneur with a business background.
We couldn’t be more excited to share Doormat publicly today. If you’re a home buyer and need a real estate lawyer, please reach out or get started here! If you’re a real estate agent interested in referring clients to Doormat, please get in touch.