Which e-signature platforms meet HM Land Registry requirements for property transactions?
Learn which e-signature platforms meet HM Land Registry's PG82 requirements for property deeds and electronic signatures.
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Quick answer · the 30-second read
No platform is approved by HM Land Registry. It does not certify, approve or list signing platforms, and says so in practice guide 82. What matters is whether the platform can support the signing process that practice guide 82 sets out, and whether the conveyancer runs that process correctly. The conveyancer signs the certificate, so the conveyancer carries the responsibility. Six platforms document a witness workflow with the required text-message authentication. Three do not offer one at all.
Why is there no approved list?
HM Land Registry sets out a process, not a product list. Practice guide 82 states directly that it does not approve or list particular signing platforms. Responsibility sits with the conveyancer, who must certify that the requirements were met. A platform with every feature can still produce a deed that fails, if the process is run incorrectly. A simpler platform used correctly can produce one that succeeds.
This is important when reading vendor marketing. A claim to be ‘HM Land Registry compliant’ or ‘HMLR approved’ is the provider’s own description of its product. No such approval exists. For the underlying rules, see Can an electronic signature be witnessed?.
What must a platform be able to do?
Practice guide 82 sets out the signing process for conveyancer-certified electronic signatures. To support it, a platform needs five things.
- It must let the conveyancer set up and control the whole process, including the order in which people sign, with witnesses signing after the people they are witnessing.
- It must send a one-time password by text message to each signer and each witness. The password must be at least six numbers long.
- It must let a witness sign the same document after watching the signer, and capture the witness’s name and address.
- It must let a conveyancer date the document inside the platform once everyone has signed.
- It must produce a completion certificate recording who signed, when, from where, and how each person was authenticated. This is the evidence behind the conveyancer’s certificate.
Which platforms state that they support the process?
Six of the nine platforms we checked claim a witness role with text-message authentication for both signer and witness. Three do not. The table records what each provider publishes about its own product.
[Note: Every entry is based on what the provider publishes about its own product [checked on 21 August 2026]. None of it is verified or endorsed by HM Land Registry, which does not assess platforms. ‘None found’ means we could not find the feature in the provider’s own documentation, not that it definitely does not exist. Providers change their products, so confirm current capability with the provider before buying.]
Platform | Witness role | Witness OTP by text | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
DocuSign | Yes | Yes | eWitness feature, with text-message authentication for signer and witness. Says it worked with HM Land Registry on the original 2020 requirements. Up to two witnesses per signer. |
Adobe Acrobat Sign | Yes | Yes, at extra cost | Adobe’s documentation names HM Land Registry deeds as the use case for witness phone authentication. That authentication is a premium feature with a per-use charge, bought separately through Adobe. An administrator must switch the witness role on first. |
Zoho Sign | Yes | Yes | Dedicated eWitness feature listing HM Land Registry deeds as a use case. Up to two witnesses per signer. Either the sender or the signer can edit witness details. |
Yes | Yes | UK provider. Uses the current conveyancer-certified terminology and cites practice guide 82 directly, including the six-digit password minimum. | |
Legalesign | Yes | Yes | UK provider. Either the conveyancer or the signer can add witness details, which suits firms that do not know the witness in advance. |
Yoti eSign | Yes | Yes | UK provider. States it worked with HM Land Registry on the guidance. |
PandaDoc | No | Not applicable | PandaDoc has no witness role. Responding to a customer request in September 2024, PandaDoc said it was not planning to build one, and the request remained marked ‘not planned’ in May 2025. |
SignNow | None found | Not applicable | We found no witness role in SignNow’s own product documentation. Its site carries pages using the phrase ‘witness sign’, but these are search landing pages rather than feature documentation. |
Dropbox Sign | None found | Not applicable | We found no witness role in Dropbox Sign’s own product documentation. Its published feature list covers signer options and qualified electronic signatures but does not include witnessing. |
Does the platform choice change if you use a qualified electronic signature?
Yes, and the requirements are different. A qualified electronic signature (QES), verifies the signer’s identity in advance through a qualified certificate. HM Land Registry accepts QES on dispositionary documents, which are not deeds, so no witness is needed and the witnessing features above become irrelevant.
What matters instead is whether the platform can issue or accept a qualified certificate from a qualified trust service provider. Far fewer platforms can. DocuSign has publicly described taking part in an HM Land Registry pilot on QES. If the QES route suits your firm, that is the capability to ask about, not witnessing.
What should a firm check before buying?
- Ask for the completion certificate from a real transaction, redacted. It shows exactly what the platform records and whether it captures witness details, timestamps and authentication method in a form your certificate can rely on.
- Confirm the text message password is at least six numbers, because some platforms default to fewer.
- Check whether the platform can send passwords to witnesses as well as signers. Some support signer authentication only.
- Check whether your firm or the signer can nominate the witness, since practice guide 82 permits either and firms differ in how they work.
- Ask where data is stored, and confirm the provider will still hold the audit record if a transaction is questioned years later.
Our verdict
If your firm already uses DocuSign or Zoho Sign, you already have what you need. Both document a witness role with text-message authentication for signer and witness, both allow two witnesses per signer, and neither charges separately for the capability. There is no case for changing platform on these grounds alone. If conveyancing is most of what you do, look at the UK specialists. eSign, Legalesign and Yoti eSign build for this market specifically. The practical advantage is currency. Their published material uses the conveyancer-certified terminology introduced in June 2026 and cites practice guide 82 as it now stands, while some larger providers still describe the 2020 rules. A supplier that tracks the guidance is a supplier less likely to leave you working to superseded steps. If you use Adobe Acrobat Sign, check the cost before you rely on it. The witness role works and Adobe names HM Land Registry deeds as the use case, but the phone authentication it depends on is a premium feature with a per-use charge, purchased separately. Budget for it rather than assuming it is included. If you use PandaDoc, SignNow or Dropbox Sign, you will need a second platform for deeds. None of them document a witness role. PandaDoc has said it does not plan to build one. For firms doing occasional conveyancing, a second subscription for deeds alone is usually cheaper than moving everything.
