How Firma BIS — the Suite's built-in electronic signature — works: the documents are yours, the process is built on the federal ESIGN Act and Florida's UETA, you may keep your own signature platform instead, and what electronic signature does not cover.
What Firma BIS is
Firma BIS is the electronic signature process built into the BIS Realtor Suite. It exists to sign the documents of your transactions — the contracts, addenda, and disclosures you already work with — inside the same transaction file where the rest of the closing lives.
The documents are yours: you bring the forms and contracts you already have — from your brokerage, your association, or your own files — and Firma BIS runs the signature on them. BIS does not host, supply, or distribute third-party forms libraries: forms protected by copyright — such as the Florida Realtors / Florida Bar (FR/BAR) forms — belong to their owners and reach your file through you, under your own membership or license. Signing a form and distributing it are different things; Firma BIS does the first, never the second.
Effective date: November 6, 2026.
The legal framework
Electronic signatures in the United States rest on two laws: the federal ESIGN Act (15 U.S.C. § 7001), which gives an electronic signature and record the same legal effect as a paper one, and the state Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) — in Florida, section 668.50, Florida Statutes. Under Florida's UETA, an electronic signature is an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to, or logically associated with, a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record; the law applies where the parties have agreed to transact electronically.
No prior approval makes a signature tool lawful, and none is needed: there is no general license, certification, or endorsement that the National Association of REALTORS®, an MLS, or the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC) or the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) grants to — or requires of — an electronic signature provider, and no rule of theirs requires or forbids any particular brand. The validity of a signature is decided by the process, not by the logo: consent, attribution to the signer, intent to sign, and a record that can be retained and reproduced.
How the Firma BIS process works
Before anyone signs, each signer gives their consent to transact electronically, and that consent is recorded with the file; where a law requires information to be provided to a consumer in writing, the reinforced consumer consent of the ESIGN Act (15 U.S.C. § 7001(c)) is collected first.
Each signer is authenticated before signing and signs with the intent to sign. The executed document is preserved with its integrity protected, and the file keeps its completion certificate — who signed, when, and the state of the document — a reproducible audit trail that stays with the transaction file.
The record that proves it
The validity of an electronic signature does not come from a logo: it comes from the record the ceremony leaves behind. This is what the law requires and what the Firma BIS process keeps on the file:
| What the law requires | What it means in practice | The evidence on the file |
|---|
| Intent to sign | The signer acts deliberately, with a clear signing action rather than a passive click | The event log shows they opened the document, read it and executed their signature |
| Consent to transact electronically | They agree to receive and sign records electronically, and know how to withdraw that agreement | Their recorded consent, with date and time and the version of the disclosure they accepted, stored alongside the signed document |
| Association with the record | The signature is attached to the document it signs | The signed PDF and its Certificate of Completion, stored together on the file |
| Attribution to the signer | The signature can be attributed to the person who signed | Their unique signing link and email verification, recorded in the certificate |
| Retention in reproducible form | The record can be retained and accurately reproduced by everyone entitled to it | The signed copy, with its certificate, delivered to all parties and kept on the file |
| Integrity of the record | The retained document is the document that was signed | The SHA-256 fingerprints of the original and the signed document, printed in the certificate: if a single character changes, the fingerprint will not match |
Without recorded consent, signing is not possible: the process requires it before the signature is enabled, and withdrawing it later does not invalidate what was already signed.
If a signature is challenged
Challenges follow a small number of patterns, and each one has its answer in the ceremony's record:
| The claim | What the record answers |
|---|
| "I never signed that" | The certificate ties the signature to their verified email and records the IP address and device behind each action |
| "Someone else signed for me" | Each signer receives their own unique link, and the certificate records which link produced which signature |
| "The document was changed after I signed" | The SHA-256 fingerprint captured at signing will not match an altered file: the check is arithmetic, not an argument |
| "I was rushed and did not see it" | The log shows when the document was opened and when it was signed |
| "I signed before the disclosure arrived" | The delivery and signature timestamps across the file's documents establish the order in which events actually happened |
| "I never agreed to sign electronically" | Their consent is recorded, with date, time and the disclosure they accepted, alongside the signed document |
That is why the certificate is kept with the document, not in the sender's account: a file that holds only the signed pages holds half the evidence.
You choose your signature platform
Firma BIS is an option, never an obligation. If you already sign on another platform — DocuSign, dotloop, Sabal Sign, or any other — you may keep signing there: BIS does not require you to switch, and nothing in your Suite works less well for it.
A document signed outside Firma BIS is a first-class citizen of your transaction file: add the executed document and its completion certificate, and it lives in the file with the same standing as one signed inside. Brokerages often set their own signature platform as their compliance record; that is their policy to set, and ours to respect.
One clarification, because the rumor circulates: the National Association of REALTORS® has not suspended or banned DocuSign. NAR presents DocuSign as its official and exclusive provider of electronic signature services in its REALTOR Benefits® program — and that exclusivity is a member-benefit sponsorship, not a rule about which tool you may use. When an agent "loses" DocuSign, the cause is a change in their brokerage's corporate agreement or platform: office policy, not a legal prohibition.
What electronic signature does not cover
Federal law itself sets whole categories aside. The ESIGN Act does not apply (15 U.S.C. § 7003) to, among others: wills, codicils, and testamentary trusts; adoption, divorce, and other matters of family law; most of the Uniform Commercial Code; court orders and official court documents; notices of default, foreclosure, or eviction concerning a primary residence; notices of cancellation or termination of utility services; cancellation of health insurance or life insurance benefits; and records for the transport or handling of hazardous materials and for product recalls. Florida's UETA likewise excludes wills and most of the Uniform Commercial Code. A document in one of those categories needs its own channel — not Firma BIS.
Notarization is a separate ceremony. Remote online notarization (RON) in Florida is its own legal regime (chapter 117, part II, Florida Statutes): it is performed by a commissioned online notary through a provider that has filed a self-certification with the Florida Department of State (section 117.295, Florida Statutes). Firma BIS is an electronic signature process, not a notarization service: if your document needs a notary, it goes through that separate channel.
Document by document
In an ordinary residential transaction, almost the entire package is signed electronically. The edges are few, and they are these:
| Document | Electronic signature | Note |
|---|
| Purchase and sale contract | Yes | Standard electronic signature |
| Listing agreement and addenda | Yes | Standard electronic signature |
| Buyer representation agreement | Yes | Standard electronic signature |
| Seller disclosures | Yes | Standard electronic signature |
| Lead-based paint disclosure | Yes | The acknowledgment page is kept on the file |
| Deed | Depends on the county | Signing it electronically can be valid between the parties, but recording it depends on the county recording office accepting electronic recording (in Florida, §695.27): it is confirmed before the closing, not after |
| Notarized documents | A separate ceremony | Notarization is not a signature: it follows its own regime (in Florida, remote online notarization under Chapter 117), and it is not part of Firma BIS |
| Wills, codicils and testamentary trusts | No | Excluded by the statute itself (ESIGN §7003 and §668.50): signed on paper, under probate formalities |
| Court orders and documents, and notices the law excludes (utility shut-off; default, foreclosure or eviction notices on a primary residence; cancellation of health or life insurance) | No | Excluded or restricted under ESIGN §7003: they follow the channel their own statute prescribes |
If a document does not admit an electronic signature, BRIA says so before it goes out — "not this one" — and the process follows the correct channel.
Records and retention
Florida law requires the broker to preserve a legible copy of all transaction records for at least five years — and, if the transaction was litigated, for at least two years after the litigation concludes, never less than five years in total (section 475.5015, Florida Statutes).
The Suite keeps the executed document and its completion certificate inside the transaction file, aligned with that duty, so the broker's record of each signature can be produced complete — whether the signature happened inside Firma BIS or on the platform the brokerage chose.
Changes and governing law
We may update this policy as the service evolves; the effective date at the top of this page is the current version, and material changes will be announced before they apply. This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Florida, United States. Questions about this policy: support@bisrealty.com.
