Practices4 min read
Bill of Sale: What is it and how to write one
A bill of sale is a written document that records the sale or transfer of property from a seller to a buyer.
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What actually makes a signature hold
Not tips and tricks. The mechanics of electronic signing, written plainly by the people building it, with the parts most vendors leave vague spelled out.
Legality
The documents an electronic signature still cannot touch
ESIGN makes electronic signatures valid for almost everything, then carves out wills, family law, most of the UCC and a specific set of notices. What 15 U.S.C. section 7003 excludes, what your state may have added, and the consent rule people trip over.
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Comparisons
What is a digital signature? Definition, examples and how it works
A digital signature is a cryptographic method that proves a document came from a specific signer and has not changed since. Most people searching for the term actually need an electronic signature, and the difference decides which tool you should be using.
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Proof and audit
What the link in the email proves, and what it doesn't
The signing link is the credential: 192 bits, minted per recipient, sent to one address. It proves whoever signed had that message. It does not prove identity, and a forwarded link carries its access with it. What the record establishes, and what it cannot.
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Signing in practice
Getting the freelance contract signed before the work starts
A freelance contract does not slip because anyone misunderstands contracts. It slips because raising it feels like distrust. What a one-page agreement has to cover, how to send it so it gets signed the same day, and what to do when they ask you to just start.
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Comparisons
Simple, advanced, qualified: which one your document needs
eIDAS sorts electronic signatures into three tiers and gives each a different legal effect. Only the qualified tier is automatically equivalent to a handwritten signature. How to tell which one your document needs, and when we are the wrong tool.
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Signing in practice
Selling something to a buyer three states away
The buyer is not going to be in your kitchen with a pen. Here is how to get a bill of sale signed by two people in different places so it actually protects both of you, and the one situation where an electronic signature is the wrong answer entirely.
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Proof and audit
Verify a signed PDF yourself, with one command
You should not have to trust your e-signature vendor about whether a document changed. You do not have to. Here is the command, on every operating system, and an honest account of the five ordinary things that break a hash without anybody tampering with anything.
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Proof and audit
Every line in an audit trail, and what each one does not prove
Vendors publish what their audit trail records. Almost none publish what each line fails to establish. Here is the full list of events on a closeit.fast envelope, the four fields every entry carries, and an honest account of the weight each one actually bears.
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Legality
They say they never signed it. What happens next?
The most useful thing an audit trail does is answer a question nobody wants to be asked. Here is how a disputed electronic signature is actually resolved, which statute decides it, and what your record has to be able to show.
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