Every signing page begins with an electronic signature disclosure (a legal requirement under ESIGN §101(b)(2) and UETA §5(b)). The signer can either:
- Agree — proceed to the signing flow
- Decline — terminate the document
What declining looks like
If the signer clicks Decline to sign, they get a follow-up dialog asking for an optional reason ("Why are you declining? — optional, max 1000 chars"). Typing a reason is encouraged but not required.
On submit:
- The document immediately moves to Declined status
- All other pending signers' tokens invalidate — the document is dead for everyone
- The originating sender receives a notification email with the signer who declined + their reason (if provided)
- A
document_declinedaudit event records the timestamp, IP address, user agent, and the declined-by signer
On the sender's side
The dashboard shows Declined documents with a red status badge. The audit trail keeps the decline event permanently. You can:
- Read the decline reason on the document detail page (if the signer provided one)
- Re-create the document under a different name / with different terms and re-send
- Archive it (no further action — just clears it from the active list)
Why decline ≠ ignore
Some signers just ignore the email until the link expires (30 days by default). That's not the same as declining — it leaves the document in limbo, costs you a quota slot, and gives no clear signal whether they meant to refuse or just got busy.
Explicit decline is better for everyone: the signer takes 5 seconds to click a button, the sender gets immediate feedback, the audit trail is unambiguous, and the document closes cleanly.