Internet Law is a contract valid?

[alligatorob]

Florida

I own and rent out a beach house on a weekly basis. Most of my renters come from advertisements on the internet and we communicate exclusively by email. More and more are paying using PayPal or electronic banking. If I email someone a rental agreement and they accept via return email, and then pay me do we have a valid contract? Is it necessary for me to ask them to sign a hard copy?

I have done this a few times and it has worked so far; no problems to date but is this a reasonable way of doing business? Do the renters have the same obligations to meet the terms of the rental agreement as if they had signed a hard copy?

A concern I have is if someone causes damage or I keep a deposit would I have the same protection as you get from a written rental agreement? If this works it would be great, easier both for me and the renters.

 

[ALawyer]

If you can really prove that they are the ones who sent the email -- and the check -- you'd be okay. The difficulty is the need for verification of the email, so it is good hard proof that the party to be charged actually accepted the agreement. And that is possibly difficult without a PGP type program to authenticate and also, apart from that, sometimes hard disks crash or get erased.

A safer thing to do would be to get back a faxed copy with a signature.