The simple answer is the title owner of a property or party listed as the purchaser under a contract. This can get more complicated when dealing with an entity. Here is a breakdown for those situations:

Trust – The trustee(s) of the trust are required to sign. Often times the trustee is the same person contained in the name of the trust, and sometimes it is someone with a completely different name. For purposes of contract signing the trustee named in the trust agreement must sign. The title agent will request a copy of the trust, especially from a Seller, to determine if the proper party signed the contract and has authority to sign the closing documents. If the proper party did not sign the contract this is often times corrected by having the correct party sign a simple addendum adopting the terms of the contract, note that this situation could create some complexities so it is important that the correct party signs initially.

Corporation – Corporations are possibly the easiest as there are typically two people with authority (referred to as “apparent authority”) to sign on behalf of a corporation for the purposes of binding the corporation to a contract and they are the President and Vice President of the company. While most companies only have one president, many companies have numerous Vice Presidents and each of them has apparent authority to bind the corporation to a contract, which can be relied upon under Florida law. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be other persons authorized to sign on behalf of the company, but those individuals would need to prove their authority by providing additional documentation.

Limited Liability Company (LLC) – LLC’s are a bit more difficult since the individual authorized to sign could be a manager, a member or a managing member. This all depends on who has that authority in the company’s operating agreement. Once the contract is sent to the title company a request will be made for the operating agreement, which will be reviewed along with other company documentation to make sure that the correct party is signing on behalf of the company.

Partnership – This one is deceivingly easy as typically a partner may bind the company, although there are situations where a partner may not have this authority. For the purposes of executing a contract though you can likely rely on the signature of a partner unless you have some knowledge to make you believe that they don’t have binding authority on the partnership.