What kind of paper is this, and what does signing it do?
The category decides almost everything else: whether a witness is needed, whether duty is payable before it can be relied on, whether it can be executed electronically at all. These are the twelve the engine knows, and its reasoning for each.
This is general information to help you prepare, not legal advice. Requirements differ by jurisdiction and change; where a document matters, take advice where it will be used.
5 kinds
Documents you can execute electronically
Electronic signatures are broadly valid worldwide — the UNCITRAL Model Law and its adoptions, ESIGN and UETA in the United States, eIDAS Article 25 in the EU and the UK. These are the categories that sit squarely inside that, subject to anything a particular regime asks for on top.
General commercial or civil agreement
Can be sent from here
The default kind, and most of what gets signed: supply and services, sale of goods, distribution, consultancy, settlement of a dispute, a variation to any of them. Also the private agreements that are not business at all — a loan between friends, a private sale, two people setting out who owns what in a house they share.
What signing it means
You are bound to the obligations as written, including every schedule the document refers to — whether or not you read them. A signature is agreement to the whole instrument, not to the pages your pad happens to sit on.
Preparing it
Name the parties as they legally are, not as they trade: the registered company name, its number and its registered office. "Signed for Acme" is not a party.
Decide whether the agreement starts when it is signed or on a separate effective date, and say which. Two dates on a document with no statement of which governs is the most common defect there is.
Put price, term, termination and governing law where a reader can find them, not distributed through the recitals.
Number every page as "page X of Y", number the schedules, and refer to each schedule from the body. An unnumbered schedule is a schedule somebody can later say was not attached.
Beyond the signatures
Usually nothing. Some regimes charge stamp duty on private instruments — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ireland and Singapore among the nineteen reviewed here — and an unstamped instrument can be inadmissible until the duty is paid.
Why it is allowed: UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce Arts 5–7; US ESIGN 15 USC §7001 / UETA; UK Law Commission (2019); eIDAS Art 25(1).
Non-disclosure agreement
Can be sent from here
A promise not to disclose or misuse information, one-way where only one side is sharing, mutual where both are. Almost always the first document of a negotiation and almost never read.
What signing it means
You are bound to keep whatever falls inside the definition of confidential information, for the period stated, and to the standard stated. If the definition is "all information disclosed", you have agreed to that.
Preparing it
Define confidential information by category — the pricing, the source code, the customer list — rather than as everything ever said. A definition that covers everything is the one a court is most likely to read down.
Give the confidentiality obligation its own term, separate from the term of the discussions. Talks ending is not the obligation ending.
Carve out what was already public, already known, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law or a regulator.
Say what happens at the end: returned, destroyed, or retained under a stated backup exception. Most breaches are of the clause nobody wrote.
Beyond the signatures
Nothing. No reviewed regime treats an NDA specially.
Why it is allowed: As general commercial — no reviewed regime treats an NDA specially.
Employment contract or offer
Can be sent from here
The document that governs the job: an offer letter, a contract of employment, a variation, a settlement on the way out.
What signing it means
For the employer, the written terms are the ones you can enforce and no others. For the employee, this is the document that decides notice, pay, hours and what happens at the end — including anything that outlives the job.
Preparing it
The start date, and if it is fixed-term, the end date and the reason for it. Several regimes police fixed terms much more closely than open-ended ones.
Pay, hours, place of work and notice on both sides — plus whatever written statement of particulars your jurisdiction requires by law within a set number of days.
Put anything that survives the job — confidentiality, intellectual property, restrictive covenants — in its own clause with its own duration. A covenant with no term is a covenant that will be argued about.
If you are sending an offer, send the contract with it. An offer accepted against terms that arrive later is a dispute waiting to be had.
Beyond the signatures
A few regimes require wet ink for specific employment instruments — in Germany, notice of termination under BGB §623 and the fixed-term clause under TzBfG §14(4) are the known islands. Check locally where the employee works, not where you do.
Stricter somewhere: Germany: termination and fixed-term clauses need wet ink. The rest of the contract does not.
Why it is allowed: Generally as general commercial; DE BGB §623 (termination) and TzBfG §14(4) (fixed-term) are the known wet-ink islands.
Lease or rental agreement
Can be sent from here
A right to occupy property for a period in exchange for rent — a flat, a shop, an office, a warehouse, a piece of equipment.
What signing it means
You take the term and the rent for the whole of its length. Leaving early is a negotiation or a break clause you already have, not a right you acquire by wanting one.
Preparing it
Identify the property exactly: full address, unit or floor, and a plan where the boundary is not obvious from the address alone.
State the term with both dates, and any break — who may break it, on what notice, and what conditions must be met on the break date.
Rent, review, deposit — and what the deposit may be applied to. In residential lettings many regimes require the deposit to be protected in a scheme, with a deadline.
Divide the repairs. Most lease arguments are repair arguments, and most repair arguments are about a clause that says "keep in good condition" and nothing else.
Beyond the signatures
Stamp duty is common on leases and often calculated on the rent over the term. A long lease can cross into a registrable interest in land, which follows the rules for property transfers rather than these — check where the land is.
Stricter somewhere: A long lease may be a registrable land interest. Where it is, the registry’s own rules govern and this route may not be open.
Why it is allowed: Short residential and commercial leases are generally e-signable; registrable interests follow real property transfer.
Deed
Can be sent from here
A document that binds without anything being given in return — a guarantee, a power of attorney, a gift, a release, a transfer. Its formality is the price of dispensing with consideration.
What signing it means
A deed binds you on its own terms with nothing exchanged, and in most common-law regimes it carries a longer limitation period than an ordinary contract. That is why the execution requirements are higher.
Preparing it
The document must say on its face that it is a deed, and be executed as one. A document that reads like a contract does not become a deed because somebody wanted it to be.
Give every signature an attestation clause with room for the witness’s name, address and signature under it.
Choose an independent witness: not a party, not a beneficiary, and in practice not a spouse or a member of the same household. A witness whose independence can be questioned is a witness whose attestation can be questioned.
Check who may execute for a company where you are. Some regimes accept one authorised signatory with a witness; others want two directors, or a director and the secretary.
Beyond the signatures
A witness to each signature, essentially always. Whether that witness may attend by video is the whole question, and the answer differs by regime.
Stricter somewhere: England & Wales: a deed needs a witness PHYSICALLY PRESENT (LP(MP)A 1989 s.1; the Law Commission’s 2019 report confirms e-signature but not remote witnessing). Rutba refuses a deed under English law rather than record a remote witness as though it satisfied that.
Why it is allowed: Witnessing requirements vary; the witness party type records observation, not physical presence.
7 kinds
Documents this service will not execute
Not a limitation we are apologising for. Each of these is excluded by the regimes we have read, and a platform that let you e-sign one anyway would be selling you a document that fails at exactly the moment you need it. The engine refuses at send, names the category, and records the citation in the evidence chain.
Will or testamentary instrument
Must be signed on paper
The document that says who deals with your estate and who receives it. It has no effect at all while you are alive, and can be replaced or revoked until the moment you are not.
What signing it means
Signing it does not give anything away. It directs what happens afterwards — and, just as importantly, appoints the people who will have to do it and names guardians for children who would otherwise be a matter for a court.
Preparing it
Appoint executors, and appoint a substitute. An executor who has died, moved abroad or fallen out with the family is the most common reason an estate stalls.
Dispose of the residue, not only the specific gifts. A will that gives away three named things and stops leaves everything else to the intestacy rules, which is usually the outcome the will was written to avoid.
Name guardians if there are children under age, and tell the people you have named.
Include a proper attestation clause, and know before the day who your two witnesses will be. A witness — or their spouse — who is also a beneficiary can lose the gift while the will itself stands.
Beyond the signatures
Wet ink and witnesses, in almost every regime on earth. A handful of jurisdictions have introduced narrow electronic-will regimes with their own custodial rules; none of them is a general e-signature platform, and none is implemented here.
Why it is refused: Excluded from US ESIGN (15 USC §7003(a)(1)), from UETA, and from the e-signable set in every regime reviewed here.
Marriage or civil partnership instrument
Must be signed on paper
The paper by which a marriage or civil partnership is made and recorded: the civil register entry, the marriage schedule, a nikah nama under the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 and its Indian and Bangladeshi equivalents, a civil partnership schedule. Often called a marriage contract, and in several traditions it genuinely is one — a nikah nama can carry the dower, conditions on the marriage, and a delegated right of divorce.
What signing it means
Signing it is a step in a public act, not a private bargain. The marriage exists because an authorised officiant or registrar solemnised it in front of witnesses and entered it in a register — the signatures record what happened, they do not make it happen.
Preparing it
Ask the registrar or officiant what they require and in what order. Notice periods, residence requirements, documents to produce and the number of witnesses are all theirs to set, and nothing you prepare in advance substitutes for their process.
Where the instrument carries terms — dower, conditions, a delegated right of divorce — decide those beforehand and in writing, with advice. They are frequently filled in hastily on the day and are among the hardest things to revisit later.
Check what the marriage does to documents you already have. In England and Wales and several other common-law regimes marriage revokes an earlier will unless it was made in contemplation of that marriage.
If either of you has property, children or a business, deal with that in its own agreement rather than in the marriage instrument — and see the next entry for what that agreement can and cannot do.
Beyond the signatures
Registration with the state, essentially everywhere, and the officiant's own formalities. Several regimes also require the instrument to be on a prescribed form and lodged within a set period.
Why it is refused: Excluded from US ESIGN (15 USC §7003(a)(2), matters of family law); and in every reviewed regime marriage is a statutory act solemnised before an authorised person with witnesses and registered, rather than a private instrument.
Prenuptial, postnuptial or matrimonial property agreement
Must be signed on paper
An agreement between two people about property and finances if the marriage ends — made before the wedding (prenuptial), after it (postnuptial), or as the choice of matrimonial property regime that civil-law systems ask couples to make.
What signing it means
Very different things in different places. In civil-law regimes the choice of property regime is formal and effective. In England and Wales such an agreement is not binding at all — a court gives it weight only where the safeguards were met. In the United States it varies by state and is generally enforceable where its own formalities were followed.
Preparing it
Both sides take their own independent legal advice. An agreement where one party had a lawyer and the other did not is the one most likely to be set aside.
Full and honest financial disclosure on both sides, recorded. An agreement signed without knowing what the other person had is worth very little.
Leave time. Signing days before a wedding invites the argument that it was signed under pressure; England and Wales looks for at least 28 days before the ceremony.
Deal with what happens as life changes — children, a business, a move to another country — or agree to review it, because a fair agreement at 25 is often not one at 45.
Beyond the signatures
A notarial deed in the reviewed civil-law regimes, and in several places registration alongside the marriage. Independent advice and disclosure are not formalities in the technical sense but they are what the agreement stands or falls on.
Stricter somewhere: The refusal here is a judgment call, not only a statute. In one or two regimes such an agreement could be signed electronically — but what gives it weight is independent advice on both sides, full disclosure and enough time before the wedding, and a platform can supply none of those. Prepare it here; execute it the way the advice you took tells you to.
Why it is refused: Within the family-law carve-out from ESIGN (15 USC §7003(a)(2)) and its UETA equivalents; a matrimonial property regime requires a notarial deed in the reviewed civil-law regimes (DE BGB §1410, FR Code civil art. 1394, ES, IT); in England & Wales such an agreement is not binding and is given weight only where the Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42 safeguards are met.
Family-law instrument
Must be signed on paper
The rest of family law: separation and divorce agreements, financial consent orders, parenting arrangements, adoption papers.
What signing it means
Many of these bind only once a court has approved them — the signature is a step, not the end of one.
Preparing it
Expect the court’s own form and its own process, and take advice before signing anything that disposes of property or fixes maintenance.
Full financial disclosure on both sides is usually a condition of the agreement standing up later.
Beyond the signatures
Court approval, in most regimes, for anything that affects children or divides assets on divorce.
Why it is refused: Excluded from US ESIGN (15 USC §7003(a)(2)); formal requirements in most regimes.
Court process or filing
Must be signed on paper
Claim forms, statements of case, statements of truth, affidavits, applications — anything filed with or issued by a court.
What signing it means
A statement of truth carries a penalty for falsehood that an ordinary signature does not.
Preparing it
Use the court’s own forms and its own e-filing service. Courts that accept electronic signatures accept them through their own portal, on their own terms.
Beyond the signatures
A judicial or court-fee stamp in several regimes, and the court’s filing rules throughout.
Why it is refused: Court documents follow the court’s own rules, not this service — excluded from ESIGN (15 USC §7003(b)).
Notarial act
Must be signed on paper
A deed or certificate drawn up and authenticated by a notary — the notary’s own act, recorded in the notary’s own register.
What signing it means
The authority comes from the notary, not from the parties’ signatures.
Preparing it
Instruct a notary. Some regimes now offer remote online notarisation; the notary’s commission decides that, not the platform they use.
Beyond the signatures
A notary may still join a Rutba envelope as an attester, in the capacity "Notary Public", and their certificate becomes the proof of a declared notarisation formality. That is a different thing from the platform performing a notarial act, which it never does.
Why it is refused: Notarisation is an officiated act this service does not perform.
Real property transfer
Must be signed on paper
Transfers, conveyances, mortgages and charges over land — anything the land registry will be asked to record.
What signing it means
Title passes on registration, not on signature. The registry’s form requirements are the ones that matter.
Preparing it
Follow the registry’s own forms and its own execution rules, through a conveyancer where the regime expects one.
Beyond the signatures
Registration, transfer duty or stamp duty, and in many regimes a witness or a notary as well.
Stricter somewhere: Some registries accept a specific witnessed e-signature process — HM Land Registry’s is the best known. A reviewed per-registry path could open this later; none is open today.
Why it is refused: Land-registry form requirements in most regimes; treated as excluded until a specific registry’s own process is implemented.
Refused is not abandoned Refusing to execute one of these electronically is not the same as being no use with it. A will, a prenuptial agreement, a deed under English law, or a family-law agreement a court will approve can be drafted in Rutba’s shared word processor — every version kept, changes tracked — and printed to a clean PDF original; the execution then happens where it must, in front of the people the law wants in the room, or before the registrar or notary whose act it actually is. The drafting wizard already does this for a deed: answer the questions in England and Wales and it composes the deed and a sheet naming who must be in the room, and produces no envelope at all. Wills and family-law instruments are the ones it does not offer yet — the guide to wills says why, and what one needs to be valid meanwhile.
Beyond signatures
Stamps, seals and notaries
A signature is not always the last thing a document needs. Where duty is payable, an unstamped instrument can be inadmissible in evidence until it is paid — and the stamp is sometimes the paper the agreement must be printed on, which means it comes before signing, not after.
Judicial stamp
court-fee stamp on instruments filed with or issued by a court
Non-judicial stamp
stamp duty on private instruments — agreements, deeds, leases, powers of attorney
Revenue stamp
adhesive or e-stamp evidencing a fee or receipt
Fiscal stamp
a tax stamp on documents, distinct from court fees
Corporate seal
the organisation’s registered seal or chop, affixed by an authorised officer
Notarisation
a notary attests identity and execution; some regimes offer remote online notarisation
Rutba records these as declarations on the envelope, each owed either before sending or before the seal, and holds the door until the proof is filed or the requirement is waived with a reason. It never affixes a stamp or a seal on your behalf and never notarises anything. How that works through the lifecycle.
19 regimes have been read and written down — which kinds each offers and which of them electronically: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy. Everywhere else the engine says “not reviewed” rather than guessing, and the agreement proceeds with that recorded. Rates are deliberately absent: duty changes by instrument, value and state, and a stale rate is worse than none.
Questions
The ones this page raises
What happens if I pick the wrong category?+
The category is yours to declare and the engine judges the send against it. Declaring an NDA and sending a will does not make it a valid will — the refusal you avoided was the one telling you the document would fail. The category you chose is written into the evidence chain either way, so the record shows what you said it was.
I am not sure which jurisdiction applies. Can I still send?+
Yes. An emailed counterparty often has no country on file, and that is legitimate. The engine applies the worldwide baseline and records a provisional notice on the envelope saying validity depends on jurisdiction — so the fact that you were told is itself part of the evidence.
Why refuse a deed in England when deeds are allowed everywhere else?+
Because a deed there needs a witness physically present, and no amount of video makes a remote witness a present one. We could record a remote witness and call it satisfied; the deed would still be vulnerable. Refusing is the honest answer, and the citation comes with it.
Does the category change the price?+
No. An envelope costs the same whatever is inside it, and refusals are free. A formality you ask Rutba to arrange is a service with its own quote, never an envelope charge.
Is this legal advice?+
This is general information to help you prepare, not legal advice. Requirements differ by jurisdiction and change; where a document matters, take advice where it will be used. The citations are here so you or your adviser can go and read the source rather than take our word for it.
Know the category, prepare it properly, then send it once.
Every envelope leaves a sealed, hash-chained record of who was invited, how they proved who they were, what they saw and what they agreed to.
