Is a signed and scanned contract valid?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

Yes. A contract is valid by virtue of the parties' agreement, so signing it on paper and sending it as a scan does not make it any less valid. If each party signs their own copy and sends a scan of it to the other, the contract is concluded when the person who made the offer learns of the acceptance. In court, the scanned copy counts as the original as long as the other party does not dispute that it matches it. If they dispute that or deny their signature, the original will be needed or the signature will have to be proved in some other way, so it is advisable to keep it. Why it is valid In Catalonia, as in most of the rest of Spain, a contract is valid if there is consent, subject matter and cause (consideration), whatever form it was made in, unless the law requires a specific form. Scanning it is merely a way of getting the signature to the other party or of keeping a copy. If the law requires the contract to be in writing, a scanned copy is a written record. If it requires a public deed, a scan is not enough, because a deed is signed before a notary. An image of a signature pasted into an electronic document is a different matter. At most, it works as a simple electronic signature, which is valid as evidence but is the easiest to deny. If the other party disputes it The “Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil”, Spain's Civil Procedure Act, allows a digitised copy of a private document to be submitted in court when only a copy is available. That copy has the same effect as the original provided that the other parties do not dispute that it matches it. If they do dispute it: The original must be produced, or it must be proved by other means that the copy matches it. If the other party denies their signature, you can ask for an expert handwriting comparison, in which an expert compares the signature with other signatures by the same person that are not disputed. If this remains unclear, the judge assesses the document together with the other evidence. What you should do Keep the signed paper originals. If each party signed a separate copy, keep both scans and the emails or messages with which they were sent. In contracts of several pages, make sure each page is signed or initialled, so that nobody can later claim that one of them was changed. Bear in mind that a scan cannot be used for registration at the “Registro de la Propiedad”, the Land Registry, which requires a public deed or another authentic document.