E-signature legality
How DocuBuilder supports the U.S. ESIGN Act and UETA, element by element — and where your own judgment is still required.
U.S. federal law (the ESIGN Act) and the state-level UETA establish that a signature may not be denied legal effect solely because it is electronic — provided certain elements are present. DocuBuilder is built to produce evidence for each of them:
Consent to transact electronically
ESIGN §101 / UETA §5 — the parties must agree to conduct the transaction by electronic means.
Every signer affirms an explicit consent statement before signing — a required checkbox whose exact wording is recorded verbatim with the signature, plus a consent timestamp stored on the signing record.
Intent to sign
A signature is an electronic sound, symbol, or process executed with the intent to sign.
Signing is a deliberate act — drawing, typing, uploading, or click-to-sign — and the recorded consent statement names the exact action taken ("drawing my signature and clicking Save"), proving the mark was intentional.
Attribution
The signature must be attributable to the person who made it.
Each signer receives a private, single-use signing link tied to their email address. Links are stored hashed, expire, and cannot be replayed — a second submission on a used link is refused. IP address and browser metadata are captured at signing time.
Association with the record
The signature must be attached to or logically associated with the record being signed.
Signatures are pinned to a specific document and version. If the document changes after a signature, the version mismatch is detectable and stale signing links are refused. The Certificate of Completion prints the SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact stored bytes.
Integrity & retention
The record must remain accurate, complete, and reproducible for later reference.
Completed envelopes are locked — they cannot be voided, re-sent, or altered after the final signature. Every action lands in an immutable audit trail, signers receive signed-copy download links, and encrypted tiers protect content with AES-256-GCM.
The Certificate of Completion
Every sent envelope offers a downloadable Certificate of Completion: the envelope's status, the document's SHA-256 fingerprint, and — per signer — the invitation, consent, and completion timestamps. It is the single artifact that summarizes the evidence above for a court, an auditor, or a counterparty.
What no platform can promise
- Excluded documents. ESIGN and UETA carve out categories — wills and testamentary trusts, certain family-law documents, court orders, and some statutory notices (e.g., utility shutoff, eviction, insurance cancellation). No platform feature makes an e-signature valid for those.
- Consumer disclosures. When you use e-records with consumers, ESIGN §101(c) puts specific disclosure and consent duties on you, the business — DocuBuilder records the signer's consent, but the statutory disclosures are yours to provide.
- eIDAS (EU). The EU regime distinguishes Simple, Advanced, and Qualified electronic signatures. Qualified signatures require certificates from accredited Qualified Trust Service Providers — we are not a QTSP, so DocuBuilder signatures are simple electronic signatures under eIDAS. Sufficient for many uses; not for those that demand QES.
This page describes the evidence EzFormBuilder records; it is not legal advice and not a representation that any signature satisfies any law for your particular use — see our Terms of Use. If your use case is regulated or high-stakes, involve counsel.