An electronically signed lease produces two files, not one. There is the PDF with the signature on it, and there is the signing record: who opened the envelope, from which address, in what order, and when each person clicked. Most managers download the first and leave the second inside the signing platform. The second one is the half that does the work when someone disputes the lease.
A signature image proves almost nothing on its own
A signature on a page is a picture. Anyone holding the file can copy, redraw or paste it, and a picture of a name does not establish who produced it. What ties a signature to a person is the record of the signing event: the address the invitation went to, the authentication step that person passed, the timestamps, the IP address and the signing order.
Signing platforms build that record and keep it. Docusign calls its version a certificate of completion and describes it as a history of every viewing, printing, sending, signing or declining action, with event timestamps and identifying data such as the signer's IP address (Docusign). Other platforms call the same thing an audit report or an agreement history. The label changes between vendors. The function does not.
The statute is written around association, not appearance
Canadian electronic signature law asks whether a signature can be tied to a person and to a document, not whether it looks like handwriting. British Columbia's Electronic Transactions Act defines an electronic signature as information a person created or adopted to sign a record and that is "in, attached to or associated with the record" (BC Laws). Read the last part again. A signature is allowed to live outside the file it signs, which is where the signing record lives.
The same Act sets out when an electronic record satisfies a requirement to provide or retain an original. It asks for a reliable assurance as to the integrity of the record, and says the test for integrity is whether the record has remained complete and unaltered. A flat PDF that has been downloaded, re-saved and forwarded through three inboxes offers no assurance about itself. The signing record is what offers it.
Check one old lease
Pick a lease you signed electronically more than a year ago and open the folder where you keep it. Count the files. If there is one PDF, you kept the picture and left the proof behind.
Now sign in to the platform and find that same agreement. The signing record will be there as its own download, usually behind a button labelled certificate, audit or history. That file should have been sitting beside the lease since the day it completed.
Two habits fix it going forward
- Download the signing record with the signed PDF, every time. Keep the pair in one folder under the same filename stem, so a missing half is obvious at a glance.
- Look for a setting that attaches the record to the completed document automatically. Some platforms offer this at the account level. If yours does, turn it on, then check whether it was on for the leases you completed last year.
Sign a handful of leases a year and this is a five second habit. Run a lease-up and it belongs in the closing checklist beside the deposit receipt.
It fails quietly, which is the problem
Nothing breaks when you skip the download. The lease looks finished, the tenant moves in, and the folder looks complete for years. The gap appears the day a tenant says they never agreed to a clause, or a buyer's counsel pulls ten leases during due diligence. By then you either hand over the record or open a support ticket about an account you may no longer pay for.
One extra download closes it. A lease you can show is not a lease you can prove.