A surety agreement is only as strong as its paper trail.
If a suretyship is ever disputed, what matters is proving who agreed to what, and when. KuduDoc prepares, routes and seals a suretyship so its terms can be proved years later — but read the box below before you decide how the surety signs.
A suretyship is one of the few documents our signature is not enough for
Section 6 of the General Law Amendment Act 50 of 1956 requires a suretyship to be signed by or on behalf of the surety. Where a law requires a signature, section 13(1) of the ECT Act is satisfied only by an advanced electronic signature from an accredited provider. We are not accredited and do not offer AES, so the surety's signature should be wet ink or an accredited AES. Everything else — preparing it, routing it, and sealing the executed copy — we do well. This is our reading, not legal advice; take your own.
No credit card to start — Personal plan included.
Signed once. Provable for as long as it matters.
A suretyship can be called in years after signing — long after memories fade. Here's exactly what KuduDoc locks in the moment it's signed.
3. Extent of Liability
The Surety binds themselves as surety for, and co-principal debtor with, the Debtor for the due and punctual payment of all amounts owing to the Creditor under the principal agreement, limited to the amount recorded in Schedule A, together with interest and costs.
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Signing order enforcedOn the paperwork that does sign here — the principal agreement completes before the deed goes out for wet-ink signature.
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Every signature time-stampedDown to the minute, on every device it was signed from.
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Tamper-evident from completionAny change after signing breaks the seal, visibly.
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Free to verify, alwaysAnyone can check it at /verify — no account required.
Before your next suretyship
Not with an ordinary electronic signature, and not with ours today. A suretyship is one of the few agreements where South African law itself demands a signature: section 6 of the General Law Amendment Act 50 of 1956 requires it to be in writing and signed by or on behalf of the surety. Section 13(1) of the ECT Act says that where a law requires a signature and does not say what kind, only an advanced electronic signature satisfies it — and an AES must come from an accredited provider. We are not one, and we do not offer AES today.
So a suretyship signed with an ordinary click-to-sign is open to attack on exactly that ground, and the party who loses is the creditor holding a deed that may be worth nothing. Spring Forest Trading v Wilberry does not help here — that case concerned a signature required by the parties’ own contract, which section 13(3) treats differently from one required by statute.
What KuduDoc is genuinely good for on a suretyship: preparing it, routing it, and sealing the executed copy so its terms can be proved later. Execute the surety’s signature in wet ink, or through an accredited AES provider. Take your own legal advice — this is our reading, not a legal opinion.
The certification signature, SHA-256 fingerprint and independent timestamp are all checkable by anyone — including a court — without needing to trust KuduDoc's word for it. The timestamp is committed the moment the document is sealed, with a Bitcoin anchor confirming within hours.
Whichever order you set. Most people finalise the principal agreement first and have the surety sign after — KuduDoc enforces whatever order you choose, so one can't get ahead of the other by accident.
A tamper-evident certification signature, a SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact file, and an independent timestamp — recorded immediately, Bitcoin-anchored within hours. All three are free to check by anyone at /verify, no KuduDoc account required.
5 suretyships a month are free, forever, no credit card. Sending more than that, or want a team seat? Personal raises that to 10 a month and costs R79/month including VAT for a household of five — that is the annual rate, and month-to-month costs more. Professional adds team seats and unlimited sends; its seat rate is on the full pricing page. Either way, suretyships you've already sent are never affected by a plan change.
Your next suretyship deserves a proper paper trail.
Personal plan available · South Africa · POPIA-minded
Also see: Real estate leases · Employment contracts · Compliance certificates