Electronic signatures for real estate documents
Leases, subleases and purchase agreements get signed by people who are not lawyers and often have not read past the first page. This guide covers how electronic signing works for those documents in SignItSure: what the signer sees before they sign, what gets filled in automatically, and what record you are left holding afterwards.
Which documents this covers
SignItSure has been tested against residential leases, commercial subleases and residential purchase agreements — the documents a brokerage sends most. It reads the party labels those documents actually use: landlord and tenant, lessor and lessee, sublessor and sublessee, buyer and seller, purchaser, homeowner, guarantor, occupant. It also recognises the roles that sign alongside them — realtor, broker, appraiser, inspector, escrow.
Any PDF can be sent. Those labels are what lets SignItSure place fields for you rather than making you drop every one by hand.
How a signing goes, start to finish
- 1
Upload the agreement
SignItSure reads it and proposes where the fields belong.
- 2
Check the fields and send
You review each suggestion, move or delete anything you disagree with, set how long the link stays open, and add an access code if the document warrants one.
- 3
Your client opens the link
No account, no download, no app. They get a plain-English explanation of the agreement and can ask questions about it before signing.
- 4
They sign, and you both get the file
The signed PDF goes to the signer; you receive the signed documents plus a signature certificate. The source files are then erased.
What gets filled in, and what you place yourself
On a lease or purchase agreement, SignItSure will usually place the signature and initials lines, printed and full legal name, dates, the property address broken into street, city, state and postal code, and figures like rent, deposit, purchase price, commission percentages and reference numbers.
It is deliberate about when it does this. A field is only suggested when two things agree: a label it recognises, and a real printed blank belonging to that label. When either is unclear, it leaves the field out rather than guess — a missing field costs you one click, a box on the wrong line costs your client's confidence.
Two cases need you to place fields yourself. A scanned page or photo with no selectable text gives it nothing to read, which matters for older lease forms that get scanned rather than exported. And checkboxes and long free-text areas are not detected at all. In both cases you place the field as you would in any signing tool.
What your client sees before they sign
Before the signature line, the signer gets a plain-English summary of what the document actually says — the money, the dates, the obligations, the things worth noticing — built from that document rather than a template. They can ask questions about it and get answers drawn from the document's own wording.
This is the part that changes how a signing goes. A tenant who understands the early-termination fee before signing does not call you about it in month three.
The record you keep afterwards
Every signature is backed by a record of the signing event — consent, timestamps, IP address and signer identity — and you receive a signature certificate with the completed package.
The documents themselves are not retained. Once delivery is complete, the source files are erased and the audit record is what remains. There is no library of your clients' agreements sitting on a server waiting to be breached.
Controlling who can open the link, and for how long
Every signing link expires. You choose the window when you send — anywhere from one hour to seven days — and it defaults to 24 hours. You can add an access code that the signer must enter, and you can revoke a link before it expires. When a link dies, the files behind it are erased at the same time.
On legal validity
SignItSure captures electronic signatures in line with U.S. electronic-signature laws, including ESIGN and UETA, and records the consent and audit detail those laws contemplate. Our Electronic Record and Signature Disclosure sets out what the signer is agreeing to.
Electronic signing does not make a document automatically enforceable — the document, the parties and the applicable law still matter. Real-estate practice varies by state, and some instruments carry their own execution requirements. SignItSure is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice; for high-stakes agreements, use it alongside your own counsel.
If more than one agent sends documents
A brokerage where several agents send agreements can work from one shared account rather than a separate login each: one workspace for the whole brokerage, one shared credit pool, consistent branding on every link, and one place to see every document in flight.
Ready to send your next agreement?
Create a workspace and start with the document on your desk today.