Signature Guidance 

Our Policy on Signatures: A Guide for Crofters and Applicants

The Crofting Commission is committed to keeping your applications secure and protecting you and your personal data. To ensure all applications are genuine and to avoid delays, we have specific rules about how you sign your documents.

1. Types of Signatures

Not all signatures are the same. Here are the three types of signatures that we accept:

  • Wet Signature: A signature written by hand, usually with a pen.
    • Note: It must be the original paper. We cannot accept photocopies or scans of a hand-written signature as a “wet signature.”
  • Electronic Signature: An image of a hand-written signature (like a picture of your signature pasted into a document) or a typed font designed to look like handwriting.
  • Simple Electronic Signature: A way to agree to something digitally without “writing” anything—for example, ticking a box at the end of an online form.

2. Which signature should I use?

Depending on what you are submitting, the rules change:

Regulatory Application Forms

  • If posting by mail: You must use a Wet Signature (hand-written with a pen).
  • If submitting via our website: You must use a Simple Electronic Signature (ticking the box before you submit). The system will automatically ask you to do this.
  • If uploading a scan of a paper form to our website: You must still complete the Simple Electronic Signature on the website; this is the signature we will use. The system will automatically ask you to do this.

Notification Forms

Most notification forms can be signed with either a Wet Signature or an Electronic Signature.

However, the following three exceptions MUST always have a hand-written Wet Signature:

  1. Notifications where parties decide NOT to go ahead with an Assignation after consent was given.
  2. Landlord notification to the Crofting Commission for a Resumption Application to the Scottish Land Court (SLC).
  3. Decrofting by a landlord where a vacant croft has been unlet for 6 months.

Agency Mandate Forms

If you are appointing a non-professional agent, or a professional agent we haven’t worked with before:

  • Both you and the agent must sign a mandate form using a Wet Signature.
  • More information on our agency and mandate policy can be found on our agency and mandate page.

Registers of Scotland Forms

  • These must be signed with a Wet Signature and sent to us by post. Digital submissions are not accepted for these forms.

3. Signing on behalf of an Organisation

If a professional organisation (like a firm of solicitors) is acting as an agent, anyone within that organisation can sign the document. The signature should clearly state that it is being made on behalf of the organisation.

Top Tip: To avoid delays, always double-check your form type against these rules before sending it to us.