E-signatures for construction

What does a builder or contractor need signed?

The main contract is signed once. What follows on a live job is a stream of smaller paper: change orders when the client wants a different window, variations when the ground turns out to be rock, sign-offs when a stage is complete. Each one moves money, and each is a dispute waiting to happen if it is agreed only by a nod on site.

Contractors also sign down the chain. Subcontractors and suppliers need agreements, purchase orders and, in many US states, lien waivers in exchange for payment.

• Quote approval and main building contract
• Change orders and variations
• Subcontractor agreements
• Purchase orders to suppliers
• Stage completion and handover sign-off

What makes signing on a building site hard

Nobody on site has a printer or a scanner, and gloves and dust do not mix with laptops. The client might be at work, the architect in another city. A change order agreed verbally at 8am needs to be on paper before the crew starts at 9.

Lien waivers carry legal weight of their own. Several US states prescribe exact statutory wording, and a few have required notarisation, so check your state's rules before signing them with any e-signature tool.

How to get a change order signed from site

All of this works in the phone browser; there is no app to install.

• Fill in your paper change order, take a photo of it, and upload the JPG or PNG. It becomes a PDF.
• Sign PDF places signature, name and date boxes beside Contractor and Client, or tap to add them yourself.
• Write the agreed price on the change order before you photograph it, and add a date signed field, which fills itself.
• Sign it yourself, then send it to the client's email. They confirm a six-digit code and sign on their phone.
• Both of you get the sealed PDF. The certificate shows the time each person signed and the device they used.

What does it cost a contractor?

A small renovation business with one job at a time might send a quote approval and one change order a month, which fits Light at $5 a month for 2 documents. Any contractor running several sites will go past that quickly.

Full at $10 a month gives unlimited documents. Save your change order as a template and every variation after that is a matter of filling in the price and sending.

What Sign PDF does not do on a building job

We are not a construction management platform. There are no drawings, RFIs, daily logs, payment applications or retention tracking, and we do not connect to construction software or accounting. We have no SMS delivery, so the client needs an email address.

Notarised documents, including any lien waivers your state requires to be notarised, and property deeds are outside what we do. This is not legal advice.