Today, the Center for Off-Site Construction was grateful for the opportunity to brief the Joint Editorial Board on Uniform Real Property Acts on the progress behind From Handshake to Hardware.

See the presentation slides, here.

The presentation traces a legal hypothesis: larger portions of building are being sold as goods (not services) and the UCC's ideal of Hybrid Contracts are urgently needed to aid that transition. The result will unlock offsite construction: speeding transactions of manufactured pods / panels / modules that ultimately will drive down construction costs. 

How? That's the infrastructure the CfOC is building: an off-site product can move from a published Configure-to-Order (CTO) File Type, through a registry and configurator, into a project with identified instances and a delivery record. It pairs that marketplace progression with Handshake’s questions about productized scope, custody, acceptance, cure, commissioning, and the boundary between product and site-trade work.

We were excited to discuss a voluntary, independently administered escrow workflow. In this model, verified receipt events can support pre-agreed payment instructions while preserving parties’ negotiated rights. A manufacturer’s payment direction might be redirected to its lender under the governing agreement. The Registry may preserve the evidence, but it does not itself create legal rights or determine legal entitlement.

The conversation helped sharpen the questions that remain. When is a lifecycle record merely evidence? When might a specifically identified, controlled electronic record evidence a transferable payment right? And what must agreements make visible before software establishes defaults?

We are gratified by JEBURPA’s and the Permanent Editorial Board’s engagement. Explore the presentation: From Handshake to Hardware.