Are electronic signatures likely to be accepted by conveyancing solicitor?

Wkmg

We just instructed Bishopsgate Law to do the conveyancing fro our sale and purchase. The documents to sign came to us bang on 5 last night via e-mail as a pdf. I’m going to sign them all this weekend and email them back for start of play on Tuesday. Are they likely to accept electronic signatures (most pdf programs have a signing feature now)? If you think not I will have to go to work to use the printer and scanner which is not a huge issue as I will have access to the empty office this weekend, it will just be a bit annoying as I’ll have to drive to work, print them out, bring them home, get other half to sign then drive back to work and scan them.

anselld

If you already have scanned signatures and you apply to the PDF via Adobe Reader the end result will be the same (but better quality) than the print-sign-scan method.   However if you are talking full e-signature then I think the conveyancers would need to send it in a suitable request format first.

Can you not just post it?  At least it would only be one trip to the office.

bni

Until very recently (3 March 2020), electronic or digital signing of deeds (as required for the valid transfer of property) was not legally accepted in England & Wales. Land Registry policy has been not to accept electronic signing of deeds, not sure if they are revising their policy in light of the statement from the Law Commissioner but I'm sure it will take a while. Nevermind the solicitors/conveyancers being up to date on any changes..

Tiglet2

Not sure if rules are being relaxed for the current situation, but the TR1 (Transfer) requires a wet signature.  It is a legal document and forwarded to Land Registry after completion for the application to register the new owner as the proprietor.  Maybe check with Land Registry to see if they will accept electronic signatures.

inspectorperez

Having recently been through several lease related transactions, documents were signed electronically in pdf format which is quite a simple process within Acrobat Reader. I am sure the solicitor mentioned that rules had changed on 1 May whereby Land Registry now accepted such signatures. As an earlier poster mentions, the document quality is much superior when completed in this way.

davidmcn

Depends which "documents" you're talking about, but if they were going to accept anything other than ink on dead tree they'd have said so. 

greatcrested

What did the solicitor say in the covering email?

csgohan4

depends on the conveyancer, ours asked for them to be posted

Tiglet2

The firm I work for requires wet signatures so would expect you to print out documents, sign them and post them back.

Wkmg

greatcrested said:

What did the solicitor say in the covering email?

They didn't hence why I'm asking here. If it wasn't for the bank holiday weekend I'd just ping them an email. I'm just going to sign them all electronically and see what happens.

steampowered

Electronic signatures are perfectly valid on things like a solicitor engagement letter, and are routinely accepted now. It would be pretty backwards for a conveyancing firm not to accept that.

You will however need to apply a wet ink signature to the sale contract in due course.