Adobe blog about electronic signatures

Unfortunately, attempting to use this process is fraught with complications. Almost nobody has the digital certificates mentioned, and far fewer could work with Adobe documents as they suggest, especially for real estate transactions.

To Yozons:

Don't leave me hanging. Got any good suggestions for esig/certifying authority/time stampimg that works well/easily with pdf and doc files which is what most real estate contracts are?

Sorry, but I don't. Hoping people have digital certs though means you won't get anything signed, though, as nobody has them or the skills to use them.

Real estate transactions are complicated by the fact that they often go back and forth, and the redlines need to be remembered, etc. The print-to-sign solutions may work, but you'll likely need to spend a lot as you'll want to keep all copies that are sent out before you end up with a completely agreed upon version with all signatures.

Yozons offers a Signed & Secured product that is used by those who want to send docs securely to get signatures, but it doesn't embed the signature inside the document (Yozons makes no changes to the documents themselves as they are sent out and agreed upon). While this is legally valid, many prefer something visual inside, even if the visual "cues" are the primary mechanism for creating fraud. After all, digital signature are not visual, but require software to verify for you. If you rely on your eyes, or printed copies, you are opening yourself up to fraud. Of course, you get fraud in the paper world, too, so you have to balance the risk of fraud with getting business done. As someone posted elsewhere, you can be sued for anything, and there's no fraud-proof world we can live in, so you just have to be careful.