Can you e-sign a lease?

The short answer

• The lease itself: yes. Apartment, house, room, commercial space, land and equipment leases can all be signed electronically.
• A long lease must be in a signed writing, and an e-signature counts. Where a statute of frauds requires a signed lease, an electronic record and signature satisfy it.
• Eviction and default notices: check your state. Federal e-signature law doesn't cover them for someone's home, and many states set how they're served.
• Recording a long lease: you'll need a notary. Recording offices want the signature acknowledged.

What federal and state law say

The ESIGN Act says a signature, contract or record relating to a transaction in or affecting interstate commerce can't be denied legal effect solely because it's electronic (15 U.S.C. § 7001(a)). Its exceptions cover wills, family law, most of the Uniform Commercial Code and a short list of notices, but not leases (§ 7003). UETA, adopted by every state except New York, does the same between parties who agreed to deal electronically, and New York's own law gives an electronic signature the same validity and effect as one made by hand.

Equipment leases are expressly in. ESIGN and UETA both leave out most of the UCC but keep Article 2A, which governs leases of goods, so a lease for a skid steer, a copier or a trailer is covered like any other contract.

Long leases and the statute of frauds

Many states require a lease longer than a year to be in a signed writing. New York's version says a contract for leasing real property for longer than one year is void unless it, or a note or memorandum of it, expressing the consideration, is in writing and subscribed by the party to be charged (N.Y. General Obligations Law § 5-703(2)). An e-signed lease meets that kind of rule under ESIGN, under UETA where it applies, and under New York's own e-signature law.

Check the state's real property rules too. Florida requires two subscribing witnesses on an instrument creating an interest in land for a term of more than a year, but the same statute says no subscribing witnesses are required for a lease of real property (Fla. Stat. § 689.01).

Notices that may need paper

Here's where electronic leasing has limits. ESIGN's validity rule doesn't apply to a notice of default, acceleration, repossession, foreclosure or eviction, or the right to cure, under a rental agreement for an individual's primary residence (15 U.S.C. § 7003(b)(2)(B)). Notices cutting off water, heat or power are excluded too. State landlord-tenant law then decides how those notices are delivered:

• Washington lists how notices in unlawful detainer cases are served: delivering a copy personally, leaving one with a person of suitable age and discretion and mailing another, or posting it on the premises and mailing a copy (RCW 59.12.040). Email isn't on the list.
• Virginia lets landlords and tenants send notices electronically if the rental agreement provides for it, but any tenant may elect paper instead, and the sender must keep proof of electronic delivery (Va. Code § 55.1-1202(A)). The same section confirms electronic signatures can be used on those notices.

So e-sign the lease, renewals and move-in paperwork freely, but serve a pay-or-quit or termination notice exactly the way your state's statute describes. If your state allows electronic notices only when the lease says so, put that clause in the lease.

Recording a long lease

Tenants under long commercial or ground leases sometimes record the lease, or a short memorandum of it, so later buyers and lenders are on notice of the tenancy. Recording goes through the county, and recording statutes generally require the signature to be acknowledged before a notary. New York shows how it works:

• A lease for a term longer than three years counts as a conveyance under the recording law (N.Y. Real Property Law § 290(3)), and a conveyance can be recorded once it's duly acknowledged (§ 291).
• Instead of the whole lease, the parties can record a memorandum of lease, executed by all of them and acknowledged, naming the parties, the premises, the term and any renewal rights (§ 291-c).

An e-signature alone won't get a document recorded. Where your state allows remote online notarization and the county accepts electronic recording, the whole thing can be done electronically; can you e-sign a property deed explains that route. The lease both sides actually live under can still be e-signed.

Disclosures that travel with the lease

For most housing built before 1978, federal law requires the landlord to disclose known lead-based paint and hazards, hand over the EPA's lead pamphlet and include a Lead Warning Statement with the lease before it's signed. The EPA says that if you give the disclosure electronically, you need the renter's consent showing they can access the forms that way, plus a clear statement of their right to paper copies and how to withdraw consent. Keep the signed disclosure for three years after the lease begins.

States add their own disclosures and forms, from deposit receipts to move-in condition checklists. Put them in the same envelope as the lease so everything is signed together and kept as one record.

Sending a lease with SignMaster

1. 1

   Build the packet

   Upload the lease, addenda and disclosures into one envelope, or start from the residential lease agreement template. They travel together and are signed in one sitting.

2. 2

   Add tenants, guarantors and yourself

   Add each adult tenant and any guarantor, then yourself with Add me, and set the signing order so you countersign after everyone else.

3. 3

   Place initials and fields

   Put initials beside clauses you want acknowledged, such as pets or smoking, and text or date fields for anything tenants fill in.

4. 4

   Send it or sign at the unit

   Email the links with a sign-by date before move-in, or use in-person signing at the walkthrough. Everyone gets the completed lease with its certificate of completion.

Several tenants who each need their own link? Get a lease signed by multiple tenants walks through it. SignMaster asks every signer to agree to use electronic records and signatures before they sign; whether that consent is enough for a particular disclosure rule is a question for your lawyer.