Can a deed poll be signed digitally or over a video call?

What does HM Passport Office require?#

HM Passport Office's guidance to its staff sets the test an unenrolled deed poll has to pass, and one line of it answers this question. Staff must accept the deed as long as, among other things, "all signatures are a wet signature". If "it does not have a wet signature", they must tell the customer to send a new one. The guidance does not define the term; the Law Commission's report on electronic execution describes a wet ink signature as one put on paper with, for example, a pen.

"All" means every signature on the deed: yours, in both names, and your witness's. The Law Commission's report lists the forms an electronic signature can take, among them a typed name, a click on an "I accept" box, a signature drawn on a screen with a stylus and a scanned handwritten signature placed in a document. Each of those is electronic, and printing the result gives you a picture of an electronic signature, not a wet one.

The guidance is relaxed about everything else. It says an unenrolled deed poll has no set format or wording and can be done online, and it tells staff not to make inappropriate comments about deeds from online companies. Getting a deed online is fine; signing it on a screen is not.

What does the law say about deeds and witnesses?#

In England and Wales, section 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 sets out how an individual validly executes a deed. It must be signed by them "in the presence of a witness who attests the signature", or by someone else at their direction in front of two witnesses, and it must be delivered as a deed. GOV.UK's wording for a home-made deed poll carries the same idea: it is signed as a deed in the presence of the witnesses it names.

The Law Commission examined what that presence means in its 2019 report on the electronic execution of documents. It concluded that an electronic signature is capable in law of executing a document, a deed included, provided the signer intends to authenticate it and any formalities are met, and that "the current law requires the witness to be physically present", even where the signer and the witness both sign electronically. It also noted that where a registry accepts only wet ink signatures, electronic signing is ruled out whatever the legal position. For a deed poll, HM Passport Office is in that position.

The Government accepted the Commission's legal conclusions in March 2020. The industry working group it then set up reported in 2022 that it saw no reason why video witnessing should not be permitted, but that primary legislation would be needed first. Section 1 was last amended in 2010, and legislation.gov.uk records no outstanding changes to it. The Law Commission lists its review of the law of deeds, which would look again at witnessing, as an upcoming project on which work has not yet started.

Can a witness watch over a video call?#

No. The pandemic change people remember was for wills, not deeds. The Wills Act 1837 was amended so that presence included presence by videoconference for wills made from 31 January 2020 to 31 January 2024. That window has closed, and it never covered a deed poll.

Notaries do not change the answer. In June 2026 the Faculty Office, which regulates notaries in England and Wales, added a chapter on remote appearance to its code of practice, letting notaries act for people who appear by video. The chapter says it is not intended to "affect or alter any requirement of law" for a witness to be physically present with the person making a deed.

Electronic signing and remote witnessing are separate questions, as HM Land Registry shows. It accepts electronically signed property deeds through a signing platform a conveyancer controls, and its practice guide still has each person sign in the physical presence of their witness.

What can I do digitally?#

• Order the deed online. Ours is drafted and checked by a paralegal, and the paper deed goes in the post the same working day, ready for you to sign.
• Keep a scan of the signed deed for your own records. It is a copy, not a substitute for the original.
• Upload it where an organisation offers that. Some banks and pension schemes take a photo or scan of the signed deed; who accepts a photocopy or a PDF lists the ones that say so.
• For use abroad, GOV.UK's e-Apostille is issued on a PDF that a UK notary or solicitor has signed electronically, if whoever asked for the document will accept one: using a UK deed poll abroad.

Even the online route to enrolling a deed poll with the High Court ends on paper. GOV.UK says HM Courts and Tribunals Service emails you the forms to print; the deed is signed in front of two witnesses, the other two forms before a solicitor or another authorised witness, and all three go back by post.

I have already signed on screen or over video. What now?#

Do not send it anywhere. If any signature is electronic, HM Passport Office's guidance tells its staff to ask for a new deed. If your witness watched on a screen, the deed was not signed in their presence as the Act requires, on the Law Commission's reading, whatever the signatures look like.

Either way the fix is the same: a fresh deed, signed in ink, in one sitting, with your witnesses in the room, and dated the day you actually sign. How to sign and witness your deed poll sets out the order. The new deed carries its own date, not the date of the video call; backdating a deed poll explains why.