How do I check someone's ID before they sign a lease or sale agreement?

Fake IDs and identity misrepresentation in rental and sale transactions are a genuine, if not everyday, risk, and the cost of getting this wrong, a lease signed by someone other than the person you vetted, a sale agreement with a misrepresented buyer, can be serious. It's worth being precise about what a standard e-signature actually proves here, because it's less than most people assume.

The confusion usually comes from the word "verified" doing double duty. A signing tool might describe its process as "secure" or show a signer's IP address and timestamp, and that genuinely sounds like verification. But confirming when and from where someone clicked is a different thing entirely from confirming that the person behind that click is the actual named individual on a government-issued ID. The first is standard on nearly every e-signature tool. The second is a specific, separate feature that only some tools build, and it's the one that actually matters for the worry behind this question.

The no-tool way: paper, email or a phone call

Checking a physical ID in person, side by side with the applicant, is still the most direct way to confirm identity, and it's exactly why in-person signing remains common for leases and property sales even as most other paperwork has moved online. For a remote deal, a video call where the person holds up their ID next to their face is a reasonable manual substitute, though it depends entirely on someone actually doing the checking carefully rather than rushing through it. If the worry is a borrowed inbox instead, stopping someone else signing with a landlord's email covers that case.

Whoever does that manual check should know what they're actually looking for, a photo that matches the live video call, a name that matches the application, an ID that isn't visibly expired or altered, rather than just glancing and moving on. It's a low-tech step, but it's only as good as the attention the person running it actually gives it, which is worth being explicit about if more than one staff member handles applications.

The software options, from simple to most capable

DocuSeal

DocuSeal, an open-source e-signature tool available self-hosted for free or as a paid cloud product, offers ID verification as an add-on on its Pro cloud plan, at $20 a user a month for the plan itself plus $2 for each identity verification performed. This isn't included on its on-premises plans based on what I found, so confirm directly if you're considering a self-hosted setup specifically for this feature.

DocuSign

DocuSign, one of the longest-running e-signature platforms, includes identity verification starting on its Standard plan at $30 a user a month, with a one-time bonus of 5 verifications included, and more advanced identity and authentication options available on its custom Enhanced plans.

Zoho Sign

Zoho Sign, the e-signature product inside Zoho's wider business software suite, includes ID verification on its Enterprise plan specifically, alongside witness signing and in-person signing, based on the feature table on its own pricing page. Its Free, Standard and Professional tiers don't include it. Zoho's pricing page didn't display a dollar figure for Enterprise when I checked, so get a direct quote.

QuickSigner

QuickSigner is an electronic signature tool built for signing documents from a browser on any device without the signer needing an account. I looked specifically for an ID verification feature on its homepage, its stated features, and its FAQ, and found nothing describing one. That doesn't mean it will never exist, but based on everything publicly available on its site right now, it's not a confirmed capability. If verifying someone's actual government-issued ID before they sign is a real requirement for your deal, choose a tool that explicitly states it offers this, like DocuSign or DocuSeal above, rather than assuming any general e-signature tool covers it.

Step by step: deciding what check you actually need

1. Figure out what the law or your insurer actually requires for your specific situation before picking a tool. Requirements for identity checks on leases and property sales vary by state, country and sometimes by the specific type of transaction, and I genuinely can't tell you what applies to your exact case without knowing your jurisdiction, so this is worth confirming directly rather than assuming either way.
2. Pick a tool that explicitly includes the check you need, rather than assuming a general e-signature feature covers identity verification by default.
3. Run the ID check before sending the contract for signature, not after, so you're not left holding a signed agreement with an identity question still unresolved.
4. Keep the verification result with the signed file, as a single combined record, rather than two separate pieces of documentation that could get separated over time.

What I'm not going to tell you

I'm not going to tell you whether your specific state, country or transaction legally requires a formal ID check before a lease or sale agreement is signed, because that genuinely depends on details I don't have about your situation, and getting it wrong in either direction, assuming a check is required when it isn't, or skipping one that actually is, carries real consequences. What I can tell you honestly: this is exactly the kind of question worth a direct call to a lawyer who knows your jurisdiction and transaction type, or to your relevant regulator if one applies, rather than relying on a general article like this one or a vendor's marketing claims to settle it. If a check is required and you skip it because a signing tool didn't flag the need, that's a gap worth closing before it becomes a real problem, not after.

It's also worth separating "legally required" from "sensible risk management" when you talk to that lawyer, since the two don't always line up. A given jurisdiction might not legally mandate an ID check for a standard residential lease, while a higher-value commercial sale in the same jurisdiction might carry a real requirement, or your own insurer might require one as a condition of coverage regardless of what the law itself says. Asking "is this legally required" alone can miss a requirement that's sitting in your insurance policy or your own brokerage's compliance rules instead of in statute. For Dubai, see the KYC onboarding workflow for a brokerage.

How I'd approach this

When a client tells me they're worried about fake IDs on lease or sale signings, I ask one question first: has this actually happened to you, or is it a general worry. If it's happened, even once, I'd build identity verification into the standing process immediately, using a tool that explicitly supports it, not a workaround. If it's a general worry without a specific incident behind it, I'd still recommend confirming the legal requirement for your situation first, since adding real verification costs real money per check, and it's worth knowing whether you're required to do it, strongly advised to, or doing it purely out of caution before committing to a specific tool and ongoing cost.

In practice, I've seen this worry resolved more often by a cheaper, lower-tech step than by adding a paid verification feature: asking for a photo of the person's ID alongside the application, reviewed by a human before the lease or sale documents even go out for signature. It's not a formal, automated identity check, and it doesn't carry the same weight as a dedicated verification feature in a dispute. But for a small landlord or a one-person brokerage doing a handful of deals a month, it closes most of the practical gap at no ongoing cost, and it's worth doing even if you later decide a paid verification feature is warranted for higher-value deals specifically. A lighter middle step is a phone code check before signing.