The documents we refuse to draft, and why that is the product

Every document generator is judged on what it can produce. The more useful question is what it will not — because a tool that will happily produce anything is a tool that will produce the wrong thing for somebody, confidently, with their name at the bottom.

Rutba Sign’s guided documents were built with a list of refusals written before a single one was built. Three of them explain the rest.

A flatshare agreement, and not a tenancy

Somebody letting a room in a shared flat needs a written agreement: who pays what, the house rules, how much notice either side gives. That is a genuinely useful document and we draft it.

A tenancy is a different animal. Tenancies come with prescribed forms, deposit-protection schemes and notice periods that vary not only by country but by city — and getting one wrong can cost a landlord the right to recover the property at all. A generator that produced "a tenancy agreement" from a handful of answers would be offering certainty it does not have. So the flatshare agreement is shaped deliberately so that it is not one, and says so.

A letter of authority, and not a power of attorney

A letter of authority lets somebody collect a parcel, speak to a utility company or pick up documents on your behalf. It is ordinary, and we draft it.

A power of attorney lets somebody act for you in law — sell your house, run your bank account. Under English law it is a deed, with its own execution requirements, and the signing engine refuses to treat one as an ordinary electronic signature at all. The letter of authority is built so that nobody mistakes it for the thing it deliberately is not.

A generator that will produce anything is one that will produce the wrong thing for somebody, confidently, with their name at the bottom.

Wills: last, and on paper

People ask for wills more than for anything else, and they are the document we are most careful with. They are sequenced last, and when they come they are print-only: in most of the places we operate, a will signed electronically is not a valid will, and a product that let somebody believe otherwise would fail them at the worst possible moment for their family.

There is a second line as well. A tool that helps somebody write down their own decisions is one thing; a product that chooses terms for a named person starts to look like giving legal advice, which has rules of its own. So wills wait on a proper reading of those rules, and on a lawyer’s review in each jurisdiction before they ship there.

Knowing which documents can be signed electronically at all

Behind these refusals is a register of document types: for each kind of document, whether it can be signed electronically where you are, what the baseline requirement is, and the law that says so. It drives what the signing engine refuses, and it is published as a plain guide anybody can read — because the question "can I sign this electronically?" deserves a straight answer whether or not you ever send an envelope.