Electronic signatures in an advice firm: which client documents can be signed online, which need a witness in the room, and what to keep as proof

Most of the paperwork in an advice case can be signed electronically. In England and Wales an electronic signature is capable of signing a document, including a deed, as long as the person signing means to authenticate it and any formality the document carries is met. That was the Law Commission's conclusion in its 2019 report on electronic execution, and the Government agreed with it in March 2020. The catch is the formality. For a deed, the law says the signature must be made in the presence of a witness, and the Law Commission's view is that this means a witness physically in the room, not on a video call.

So the question for a firm is not "are e-signatures legal?" but "what formality does this particular document carry?" We sorted nine documents from a typical case to answer it.

Nine documents, three groups

Five of the nine carry no legal formality at all. An ordinary contract needs agreement, not ink, and a typed name, a click on a signing platform or a drawn signature on a tablet all count as a signature for these.

Three are signed on someone else's terms. A provider can set its own rules on what it accepts, and some still ask for wet ink on particular forms, especially older pension products and some trustee paperwork. The law does not stop an e-signature there; the provider's process might. Check its current requirement before the client signs, because a rejected form adds a round to the letter of authority chase and pushes the case back.

One is a deed. Life policy and bond trusts are usually made by deed, and a deed signed by an individual needs a witness who attests the signature. The witness can sign electronically too, but has to be there when the settlor signs. A screen share is not presence on the Law Commission's reading, and the law has not been changed since to allow video witnessing. If your provider runs an online trust process, read how it handles witnessing before relying on it.

What makes an e-signature hold up

Section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes an electronic signature admissible in evidence on whether a document is authentic and has not been altered. Admissible is not the same as unchallengeable. If a client later says they never agreed to the ongoing charge, the firm will want to show who signed, when, and what they saw. A signing platform's completion certificate usually records the signer's email address, the time of each step, the IP address and a fingerprint of the final document. Keep that certificate with the signed copy, for as long as you keep the file under your retention schedule.

Three habits help:

• Send each document to the client's own email address, not a shared or spouse's address, so the signature points at one person.
• For joint clients, have each sign separately rather than one ticking for both.
• Keep the version the client signed as a locked PDF. An editable document with a signature pasted in proves very little.

Identity checks are a separate question

Signing a document and verifying who someone is for money laundering purposes are different jobs. Regulation 28(19) of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, in force since January 2020, lets a firm treat information from an electronic identification process as coming from a reliable, independent source, as long as the process is secure from fraud and misuse and gives the level of assurance the risk needs. An e-signature on its own is not an identity check. A firm that onboards remotely still needs its own verification step, recorded on the file, and the client file checklist is a good place to tick it off.

Where Overlyft fits

An AI assistant set up by Overlyft can prepare the signing pack for each case: it lists the documents, marks which ones the provider says need wet ink or a witness, sends the rest through the firm's signing platform once the adviser has approved them, and files the completion certificates with the signed copies. It does not decide whether a document is a deed or whether a provider's process is good enough; the adviser and the firm's compliance support do that. Not legal or regulatory advice.