Why every e-signature could soon be contestable

For years, businesses have treated e-signature as the safe ending to a contract process.

The document is sent. The client clicks. The signed PDF comes back. A certificate is stored somewhere in the system. Everyone breathes out and assumes the risk has been dealt with.

But that confidence is starting to look misplaced.

An e-signature can prove that someone completed a signing action. It can usually prove when they signed, what document they signed, and sometimes where or how they signed it. That all matters.

But it does not prove the bigger thing. It does not prove they understood what they were agreeing to. That is the gap. And that gap is where more contracts will become contestable.

This is not an argument that e-signatures are invalid. They are not. The stronger point is that e-signature alone may become a weaker and weaker defence when a customer, client or consumer later says:

• I did not understand that term.
• Nobody explained that charge.
• I did not realise I was agreeing to that.
• That clause was hidden in the small print.
• I was not given enough information to make a proper decision.

That is why every e-signature should now be seen differently, not as the end of the legal risk, but as a possible point of attack.

E-signature can close a workflow while leaving the legal risk wide open.

What this blog contains

• The false comfort of a signed contract
• Why “they signed it” is becoming a weaker defence
• Can a signed contract still be challenged?
• Legal precedent is moving beyond signatures
• Why contestable contracts cost businesses money
• The e-signature evidence gap
• The future risk: signed but indefensible
• How i agree reduces contestable contract risk
• References and further reading
• Frequently asked questions

The false comfort of a signed contract

The modern contract process is built around speed. Send the document. Get it signed. Store the certificate. Move on. That works brilliantly if the only question is whether the person clicked the button. But that is not always the question that matters when a contract is challenged.

The real question is often much harder: Did the person understand the important parts before they agreed?

A signed PDF does not answer that. A timestamp does not answer that. A certificate of completion does not answer that. Even a neatly logged e-signature journey may only show that the signing step happened. It rarely shows that the person knew what mattered. This is the false comfort of e-signature. It gives businesses a clean process, but not always a strong defence. It proves the transaction was completed, but not necessarily that the agreement was properly understood.

That distinction matters more now because contracts are no longer just contracts. They are part of customer experience, regulatory compliance, complaint handling, sales journeys and risk management. If the person on the other side says they did not understand the agreement, your business may need more than a signature certificate. You may need to show what was explained, when it was explained, how it was presented, and what the customer confirmed before agreeing. That is a very different evidence standard. It is also why businesses are starting to look beyond simple signing tools and towards e-signature alternatives built around informed consent.

Why “they signed it” is becoming a weaker defence

The old commercial mindset was simple: They signed it, so they agreed.

That line still has power. It would be wrong to pretend signatures do not matter. They do. English law recognises electronic signatures, and signatures are still a core part of how many documents are executed. But “they signed it” is not the complete answer it once felt like. Courts, regulators and customers are increasingly interested in what happened before the signature. That is where the real risk sits.

Before the customer signed:

• Were key terms clearly presented?
• Were unusual or onerous terms brought to their attention?
• Were charges, deductions or consequences explained?
• Was the customer given enough information to make an informed choice?
• Was the wording clear enough for a normal person to understand?
• Was the customer vulnerable, rushed or under pressure?
• Can the business prove any of this happened?

That last question is the one businesses should be worrying about. Not because every signed contract is going to fail. That is not the point. The point is that more businesses will find themselves holding signed documents that are still open to challenge. The risk is no longer just unsigned contracts. The risk is signed contracts that cannot be defended.

This is especially true in sectors where understanding matters, such as legal services, financial services, claims management, insurance, motor finance, lending, subscriptions, care, utilities and any customer journey involving complex terms or important consequences. That is why informed consent beyond signatures is becoming such a serious commercial issue. It is not just about being nice to customers. It is about having better evidence when the agreement is questioned.

Can a signed contract still be challenged?

Yes. A contract can be signed and still be challenged. That does not mean the challenge will succeed. But it does mean the business may have to spend time, money and energy defending it.

A signed contract may be attacked for several reasons, including:

• lack of informed consent
• unfair terms
• misrepresentation
• undue pressure
• lack of proper notice
• unclear or hidden charges
• onerous or unusual clauses
• vulnerable customer treatment
• failure to explain key consequences
• poor customer understanding

In each case, the signature may still exist. The PDF may still be complete. The audit certificate may still be technically correct. But the argument moves away from whether someone signed and towards whether the agreement process was fair, clear and properly evidenced. That is why contestability matters.

A contestable contract is not necessarily an invalid contract. It is a contract that can be questioned, delayed, complained about, escalated or challenged because the evidence around understanding is weak. The contract may be signed, but the agreement can still be attacked.

This is where traditional e-signature starts to show its limits. It was built to capture acceptance. It was not built to prove comprehension. That is a problem because the commercial value of a contract is not just that it exists. The value is that it can be relied on when things go wrong. If your evidence only shows a click, and the dispute is about understanding, you may have the wrong evidence for the fight you are actually in.

Legal precedent is moving beyond signatures

This is not a brand new idea. The law has long recognised that simply putting terms somewhere in a document or process may not always be enough. The direction of travel is clear: the more important, unusual or financially significant a term is, the more care a business should take to bring it to the person’s attention.

Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking: important terms need proper notice

In Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking, the court looked at whether terms had been properly brought to someone’s attention before the contract was formed.

The wider point is simple: a business cannot always rely on terms that appear too late or are not properly presented. For modern digital contracts, this matters. If a customer clicks through a process without key terms being made clear, the business may later face the question: was the customer really given proper notice?

The law has long recognised that simply placing a term somewhere in the process may not be enough.

Interfoto v Stiletto: harsh terms need clearer attention

Interfoto v Stiletto is another important case because it supports the idea that especially onerous or unusual terms need especially clear notice.

That principle should make businesses uncomfortable if they rely on long, dense contracts where important terms are technically included but practically invisible. If a term has a serious consequence, it should not be buried. It should be highlighted, explained and evidenced.

The harsher the term, the harder it is to rely on it if it was hidden in the detail.

Herbert v HH Law: informed consent needs more than paperwork

In Herbert v HH Law, the Court of Appeal considered informed consent in the context of solicitor client costs and success fees.

The important point for this blog is that approval was linked to proper explanation. It was not enough to rely on the fact that documents existed. The solicitor had to show that the client’s consent was informed. That is a major warning sign for any business that assumes “signed” automatically means “understood”.

In some disputes, the burden is already on the professional to prove the client was properly informed, not merely that they signed.

Belsner v CAM Legal Services: the court looked upstream

Belsner v CAM Legal Services is more nuanced, but it is still useful because the court looked closely at what information the client had been given about costs and deductions.

The signed retainer mattered. But the wider issue was whether the client had enough information to understand what would happen to their damages. That is the key shift. The court’s attention moves upstream, before the signature, into the quality of the explanation.

The courts are looking upstream, before the signature, at the quality of information given to the client.

Edwards and Raubenheimer v Slater and Gordon: the sign up process mattered

In Edwards and Raubenheimer v Slater and Gordon, the court considered issues around solicitor client retainers, disclosure and the wider sign up process.

What makes this case useful is that the evidence was not only about the final signed document. The wider process mattered, including recordings and what happened during sign up. That is exactly where contract risk is heading. Businesses will increasingly need evidence of the journey, not just the final document.

The evidence that matters is increasingly the process around the agreement, not just the final signed document.

This is why contract transparency and audit trails are becoming so important. The future evidence bundle will need to show how understanding was created, not just that a signature was captured.

Why contestable contracts cost businesses money

A contract does not need to be declared invalid to cause a business serious problems. It only needs to become contestable. Once a customer challenges an agreement, the cost starts immediately. Teams have to find records. Complaints have to be answered. Legal advice may be needed. Payment can be delayed. Relationships become strained. The business may settle simply because fighting takes too long.

A contestable contract can lead to:

• delayed payment
• customer complaints
• regulatory scrutiny
• legal fees
• reputational damage
• settlement pressure
• lost trust
• internal time wasted
• weaker enforcement
• poor customer experience

That is why this is not just a legal issue. It is a business issue. Bad contract journeys create operational drag. They create complaints that could have been avoided. They create customers who feel tricked, rushed or confused. They create risk in the exact moment the business thought risk had been removed.

A contract does not need to be invalid to become expensive. It only needs to be contestable.

This is also why consumer understanding can reduce disputes and complaints. The cleaner the agreement journey, the fewer gaps there are for confusion, frustration and challenge later.

The e-signature evidence gap

E-signature tools are good at proving a signing event.

They can often show:

• who signed
• when they signed
• what document they signed
• the email address used
• sometimes the IP address, location or device
• whether the document changed after signing

That is useful. But it is not the same as proving understanding.

E-signature tools usually do not prove:

• what the customer understood
• which clauses were explained
• whether key risks were highlighted
• whether costs or consequences were made clear
• whether the customer had questions
• whether the customer was rushed
• whether the customer gave informed consent
• whether the process was fair for that type of customer

This is the evidence gap.

The tool proves the action, but the dispute may be about the understanding behind the action.

E-signature proves the action. It does not prove the understanding behind the action.

That is why the next generation of contract tools will not just be about signing faster. They will be about explaining better, recording better and defending better.

For regulated businesses, this is even more important. The FCA’s Consumer Duty focuses heavily on consumer understanding, and firms are expected to support customers in making properly informed decisions. That makes a basic signing journey look increasingly thin.

Businesses in financial services should look closely at financial services consent journeys, while law firms should consider how client onboarding for law firms can create better evidence than a signed engagement letter alone.

The future risk: signed but indefensible

The future problem for businesses will not be unsigned contracts. It will be signed contracts that are difficult to defend. That is the whole issue in one line. As expectations around fairness, transparency and informed consent rise, businesses will need to show more than a signed PDF. They will need to show that the important parts were explained, understood and accepted.

The old evidence bundle looked like this:

• contract
• signature certificate
• timestamp

The future evidence bundle will look more like this:

• contract
• plain English explanation
• key term summary
• evidence the customer saw it
• evidence the customer understood it
• answers to questions
• confirmations
• audit trail
• final acceptance

This is where the market is moving.

First, businesses needed paper signatures. Then they needed digital signatures. Now they need defensible consent. That does not mean every contract needs a complicated legal process. It means the agreement journey needs to match the risk. If the term is simple, the journey can be simple. But if the contract includes fees, deductions, exclusions, unusual clauses, commitments, risks or important consequences, the business should not rely on a click alone.

That is why contract comprehension and behavioural science matter. People do not read contracts like lawyers. They skim. They click. They avoid dense language. They miss key details. A good agreement process should be designed around how people actually behave, not how businesses wish they behaved.

Every e-signature creates a record of acceptance. But without proof of understanding, it may also create a point of attack.

How i agree reduces contestable contract risk

i agree is built to reduce the gap between signature and understanding.

Traditional e-signature says: Here is proof they signed.

i agree helps say: Here is proof they were informed before they agreed.

That is the difference. i agree helps businesses create a clearer and more defensible agreement journey by supporting:

• clear summaries
• video explanations
• key term highlighting
• client confirmation
• better records
• stronger audit trails
• evidence of the agreement journey
• a more transparent customer experience

This matters because the future of contracting is not just about speed. It is about confidence.

Can the business confidently show what was presented? Can it show what was explained? Can it show how the customer confirmed their understanding? Can it defend the agreement if the customer later says they did not know what they were signing?

That is where i agree changes the conversation.

You can see the process in more detail here: how the informed consent journey works. For businesses comparing old signing flows with a more defensible model, this page on the benefits of replacing e-signature with informed consent is also a useful next step.

There are also sector specific reasons to care. In motor finance claims, for example, fee transparency and informed consent are not nice extras. They are central to reducing complaints and improving the quality of client onboarding. That is why i agree has a dedicated page for motor finance claims compliance and informed consent.

The point is not just to get contracts signed faster. The aim is to make agreements harder to challenge later. That is the shift businesses need to understand now. The safest contract is no longer just the one that has been signed. It is the one that can be defended.

References and further reading

Internal links

• How the informed consent journey works explains how i agree turns existing contracts into a clearer agreement journey with plain English, video and audit trails.
• Benefits of replacing e-signature with informed consent covers the business value of clearer, more defensible agreements.
• E-signature alternative for UK businesses explains how i agree compares with traditional signing tools.
• Informed consent beyond signatures gives more detail on why understanding matters before agreement.
• Why signatures fail explores why signatures prove acceptance but not always understanding.
• Contract transparency and audit trails explains why evidence of the agreement journey is becoming more important.
• How consumer understanding reduces disputes and complaints connects clearer agreements with fewer avoidable complaints.
• Behavioural science and contract comprehension explains why people often do not read or understand traditional contracts.
• Legal and regulatory compliance sets out how informed consent supports regulated businesses.
• Reducing complaints and disputes focuses on the operational benefits of clearer agreement journeys.
• Use cases for law firms explains how law firms can improve client onboarding and reduce disputes.
• Use cases for financial services covers customer understanding and consent evidence in regulated finance journeys.
• Motor finance claims compliance and informed consent focuses on fee transparency, informed consent and defensible client onboarding.
• The future of agreements with voice and video consent looks at how richer evidence can support modern contracting.
• Frequently asked questions answers common questions about i agree and informed consent.

External links

• Law Commission: electronic execution of documents confirms the legal position on electronic signatures while also showing that execution is only one part of the wider evidence picture.
• FCA: consumer understanding good practice explains the regulator’s focus on helping customers make effective, timely and properly informed decisions.
• FCA Handbook: consumer understanding outcome sets out rules requiring firms to support retail customer understanding.
• CMA: refreshing unfair contract terms guidance shows ongoing regulatory focus on fairness and transparency in consumer contract terms.
• Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking summary explains why timing and notice of terms matter before a contract is formed.
• Interfoto v Stiletto summary explains the principle that onerous or unusual terms require clearer notice.
• Herbert v HH Law case note explains the informed consent issue in solicitor client costs and the burden on the solicitor.
• Belsner v CAM Legal Services judgment gives the Court of Appeal’s analysis of costs information, deductions and client understanding.
• Edwards and Raubenheimer v Slater and Gordon judgment shows the importance of the wider sign up process, disclosure and evidence around client consent.