E-sign tenancy agreements. A signature is easy. Proving it is the job.

Yes, for a normal residential tenancy. Section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes an electronic signature, and the certification of that signature, admissible in evidence in legal proceedings on any question about whether a document is authentic or has been tampered with. The Law Commission confirmed in its 2019 report on the electronic execution of documents that an electronic signature is capable in law of being used to execute a document, provided the person signing intends to authenticate it and any other required formalities are met. Nothing about renting a home falls outside that.

It is the record of how the signature happened, kept alongside the signature itself. Ours records who signed, when, from which IP address and on which device, and when each tenant signed. It matters because a signature on its own proves very little in a dispute: the question a court or a deposit adjudicator actually asks is whether this person signed this version of this document. Section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes the certification admissible for exactly that question, which is why the certificate is the point rather than a nicety.

Yes. There is no requirement for a wet signature, a printer or a witness on an ordinary assured tenancy. The tenant opens a link, reads the agreement, signs on the screen and gets the signed copy. That is a real advantage: the agreement can be signed the same evening rather than sitting in a pile waiting for someone to find a printer, and the version everyone signed is the version you sent.

Yes: a deed. The Law Commission was explicit that a deed must still be signed in the physical presence of a witness who attests the signature, and that this remains the case even where the person executing the deed and the witness are both signing electronically. In renting this rarely arises: since 1 May 2026 an assured tenancy is periodic and is not granted by deed. It bites on long leases, so if you are granting one, take advice rather than assuming the tenancy workflow covers it.

This is what the certificate is for. You can show the signing session: the address it came from, the device, the timestamp, the time each tenant signed, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the document as signed. Because that fingerprint is recorded and emailed, a later alteration is detectable rather than arguable. That turns "I never signed that" from your word against theirs into a record you can produce.

Yes. The signed PDF and its certificate stay in your account under Documents, listed against the property and the tenant, with a download of the signed copy, next to your certificates and the rest of the property’s paperwork. The moment you need them, whether for a deposit dispute, a Section 8 claim, an insurer or an accountant, is never the moment you want to be searching an old inbox.

No. E-signing is part of the trial and paid plans rather than a per-envelope charge, and it is the same signing engine used across the product: tenancy agreements, inventories and condition reports all use the same signing record. There is no separate e-signature subscription to buy alongside.

Yes. Upload the PDF to the property’s documents and send it to the tenant for signature: it gets the same signature page and audit certificate as an agreement generated here. The one check worth making first is the document itself, because an agreement drafted for the pre-May-2026 regime is a problem an e-signature only makes faster. A password-protected PDF cannot take a signature, so upload an unprotected copy.