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miss David Sol and I'm a real estate finance attorney here in Michigan today's question comes from Susan Ross of Grosse Pointe and she writes that last year I entered into a private road agreement with my next-door neighbor who at the time of the signing was down in Florida for the winter you know we agreed to sign on a separate copy of the agreement we both signed in black ink and now less than a year later my neighbor says that the contract is not valid and that she never gave me the copy with the original signature so quite frankly I can't tell if her signature is the original or if it's a copy because again she signed in black ink what are my rights well whether or not the contract is still valid depends on quite a few items Susan first let me just say for all practical purposes when it comes to signing a document with either blue or black ink it's kind of personal preference until it's not and what that means is that blue ink makes it easier to determine which document is an original and which document is a copy however in many real estate transactions real estate recording offices and title companies will request that the people who are signing or the signers do so in black ink because it photocopies better and if the documents aren't going to be signed pardon me if the documents aren't going to be recorded then I prefer to use blue ink so not every contract that I deal with on a daily basis gets recorded with the Register of Deeds only those that relate to real estate now with regards to the validity of the separately signed contract when there are multiple parties to a contract you know it's best to insert a counterpart clause into that contract and this is a good idea when parties are located either in different cities or states or they can't you know they're just not able to attend the actual signing of the contract in person so allowing for a counterpart clause means that parties to a contract actually agree that the signed copy of a document is as good as the original document itself so they don't need to sign the same original document because the clause itself indicates that they're both agreeing or the parties are agreeing to be bound to that same document even if it's on a separate copy of the document so for instance you could have three different signers located in three different states and they're all signing on three separate copies of the same document that's fine you know with the counterpart clause each copy or each signed copy could actually be combined to make one valid contract and courts will actually honor that separately signed agreement and when there is that counterpart clause you know a few still will do so without the clause but you know why would you ever take a chance without it so it's my mind clinician to advise clients to always have a counterpart clause included in the contract in your case Susan your neighbor can actually raise a defense against the contract and its validity because of all the original signatures we're not found on a single document and you did not have the appropriate clause it certainly is going to make the legal action to enforce the contract a little bit more difficult anyway so you know you should remember this always best to have a real estate or contract attorney review your documents and like all legal agreements you should have them reviewed so I encourage you to see and like more of our videos concerning real estate law and contract law at proven resource com I'd also request a you know to feel free to leave your comments and share your feedback about this video and the other videos that we produce and definitely write in the comments section what legal topics that you are interested in and what you're concerned about and that's pretty much it so thanks for watching on David sole real estate attorney and finance attorney you can also reach me at Triple Eight seven eight nine one seven one five or at proven resource calm