Signed contracts by email?

Figment

In trying to make my processes more efficient i am wondering if it would be ok to accept signed agreements by email?
Is something simple like a reply to an email agreement with "I agree to the above" acceptable? If terms were ever disputed would it stand up in a court?

No doubt a paper signature is best if you can get it but is it a suitable alternative?

Does anyone use this method? The like of hosting companies have on-line agreements but they do require payment upfront first.

is_that_so

Personally I would treat all valuable documents the same. Make sure you have
written copies. You can have an online acknowledgement but I would make it subject to a signed document. I have seen this online appriach with expenses and contracts. But all ultimately require a signed document .

As regards online prepayments more often than not you are talking about a guaranteed payment e.g. underwritten by credit card.

IMHO you are taking a risk by not insisting on a signed document as part of the process, especially if payment is involved.

dahamsta

For the kind of money you're talking about I wouldn't accept an online agreement unless it had a digital signature (which should stand up in court as they're provided for in the eCommerce Act of 2000). However how many of your clients are going to have keys, or even understand the concept?

adam

RainyDay

You'd certainly need to ensure that any such approval emails were signed with a digital signature for them to have any meaning. Email spoofing is just too easy - without a digital signature, the approval email could have come from anyone.

Kinetic^

As with the above posters, stick with the original copys of signed items. My only other suggestion is to email over the signed copy to get the ball rolling and then send the original by post, not too sure if it would work though.

Figment

Thanks all.

Duckjob

That reminds me of a couple of years back, a company I was going to do some work for sent me a non-disclosure agreement and asked me to sign it and email it back, so I scanned in my signature, pasted it into the document and emailed it to them. AFAIK, completely worthless from a legal point of view, but it kept them happy.

DublinWriter

dahamsta wrote:

unless it had a digital signature (which should stand up in court as they're provided for in the eCommerce Act of 2000).

Just because something has been passed in legislation doesn't mean than it can be enforced in a court, e.g. the recent nursing home charges fiasco.

The law of Tort has been around since the year dot. Stick to the paper dude.

dahamsta

Yawn.