Appearance
Witnesses
A witness watches. A signatory signs.
The two are different people doing different things, and clients get it wrong because for a long time the booking form only offered one of them.
A witness attests that they saw somebody else sign and takes on no obligation. A signatory executes the document. If a client has named a co-owner or a fellow director as a witness, that is worth raising before the session — the certificate would otherwise say a witness attested a deed that a party in fact executed, and you sign that certificate.
A signatory may bring their own witness
A witness can now be invited by a signatory, not only by the client, and a witness belongs to the party who invited them. On an act where three people sign at three different sittings, a witness invited by one of them has nothing to do with the other two and may only join that party's session.
Where the act records who a witness was attesting for, the certificate says so.
Some documents require one or more witnesses to sign alongside the principal client. NotariseIt fully supports witnesses within the live session.
Who adds the witnesses
The client does, when they book. There is no invite control on your side, and this is not an oversight — a witness is the client's choice of person, and the client is the one who knows their name, email and phone.
At the witnesses step of booking, the client adds up to three witnesses with + Add witness, giving a name, email and phone for each. Each one is emailed a secure, personalised KYC portal link as soon as the booking is made. Witnesses do not need a NotariseIt account.
A client who forgot to add a witness
Witnesses are attached at booking. If a client realises afterwards that they need one, the practical route is to cancel and rebook — inside the free-cancellation window that costs them nothing. Tell them before the session rather than discovering it in the room, where there is no way to add anybody.
What you can do with witnesses is on the Witness KYC Status panel: see each one's verification state, re-send their portal link, waive the requirement with a written justification, and issue their join link.
Witness KYC — what the witness must do
Before they can be admitted to the live session, each witness must complete identity verification through their portal link. The portal walks them through a short, self-service flow:
Step 1 — Choose an ID method
The witness selects how they want to prove their identity. The portal recommends:
| Method | What the witness needs |
|---|---|
| NIN ⭐ Recommended | 11-digit National Identification Number |
| BVN ⭐ Recommended | 11-digit Bank Verification Number |
| Voter's Card ⭐ Recommended | INEC Voter Identification Number (VIN) |
| Passport | Passport number + surname |
| Driver's Licence | FRSC licence number |
| Upload document | Fallback — PDF or image scan of any government ID |
Verification via NIN, BVN, Voter's Card, Passport, and Driver's Licence is instant — Dojah checks the government database in real time and returns a confirmed result within seconds.
Document upload is a fallback for edge cases (e.g. a temporary Dojah outage). Uploaded documents are not verified automatically; you will need to review them manually on camera during the session.
Step 2 — Instant verification
The witness enters their ID number (and surname for passport). The result is returned immediately:
- Confirmed — the portal shows the name and details returned from the government database so the witness can confirm it matches their ID.
- Failed — the portal explains the mismatch and invites the witness to retry or choose a different method.
Seeing who is expected, before the room opens
A witness is a statutory participant, not an extra guest. For the instruments that require an attesting witness, a session conducted without them is not a complete session — so you need to know one is expected while you can still do something about it.
Two places tell you, and both are visible before the session starts:
- Appointment Details — open a booking from Appointments and the witness block sits below the documents. Name, and where each witness has got to.
- Session detail page — the Participants panel lists the witness alongside you and the client.
Each row reads one of four states:
| State | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation not sent | The witness has never been emailed | Send their invitation — they cannot verify without it |
| Invited — awaiting their ID | Emailed, nothing submitted yet | Chase them before the session |
| ID uploaded — awaiting check | Documents in, verification pending | Nothing — this clears itself |
| Verified | Identity confirmed | Nothing |
Only Invitation not sent asks anything of you. If any witness is in that state, a line under the list says so plainly.
Monitoring witness KYC status (notary)
On the session detail page, the Witness KYC Status panel (right sidebar, notary only) shows each witness's real-time verification state:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
NIN verified / BVN verified etc. | Passed an instant Dojah lookup |
Document uploaded | Uploaded a scan — no instant verification |
No KYC yet | Witness has not started verification |
Waived | You waived the requirement with a written justification |
The panel also shows the name returned from the government lookup so you can confirm it matches the person on your call.
If you have never seen this panel before, that is why
Until September 2026 this panel was switched off by a fault — the page looked for the booking under a field that did not exist, so the check silently failed and the panel never rendered for anyone. It works now. If you have been running sessions without it, this is new to you even though the guide has described it for some time.
Admitting witnesses to the live session
From the PreJoin Lobby (or the session room), click Admit next to a witness's name.
Admitted is not the same as arrived
The Participants list in the room shows where each person actually is — Waiting, At the door, or In room — and the counter beside it (2/3) counts only those who have connected. A witness you have admitted still reads as Waiting until they open their link. Once they are in, the Send join link button disappears for them, so a link on offer means they are not yet in the room.
KYC gate
A witness cannot be admitted if their identity has not been verified (no completed NIN/BVN/VIN/Passport/DL lookup, no uploaded document, and no waiver in place). The Admit button will return an error explaining the reason.
If a witness genuinely cannot complete KYC in time (e.g. a provider outage), you can waive the requirement:
- In the session room, find the witness in the Verification Status panel.
- Click Waive verification (logged to audit trail).
- Enter a written justification of at least 20 characters.
- Click Confirm waiver — the waiver is recorded in the session's tamper-evident audit trail.
You can then admit the witness. The waiver, your ID, and your justification text are all written to the audit log and appear on the final notarial certificate.
Witness signing
During the session, witnesses complete their own signing step:
- Place a Signature field for each witness using the Signing Field Editor. Each witness appears in the Assign To list by name, alongside your clients.
- The witness signs using the same typed-name or QR handwritten pad flow as the client. A witness sees only the fields assigned to them — with two witnesses on one document, neither can sign in the other's place.
- Their signature is embedded into the document alongside the client's and your notary seal.
Signing order is enforced
Your clients must finish signing before witnesses can sign, and all witnesses must sign before you can certify. The platform enforces this — you will be told who is still outstanding rather than allowed to seal an incomplete document.
Witness communications
| Trigger | Email sent to witness |
|---|---|
| Booking confirmed + payment | KYC portal invitation with personalised link |
| 24 hours before session | Reminder with link refresh (if KYC not done) |
| 1 hour before session | Final reminder |
| Session cancelled | Cancellation notification |
| Session rescheduled | New date/time with refreshed KYC link |
| Session completed | Copy of the notarial certificate (if opted in) |
Verification summary in the audit trail
When the session is completed, the full witness verification summary — method used, whether the identity check passed, and any waivers — is written into the session's audit trail under the verification_summary event. It also appears in the notarial certificate under DIGITAL SIGNING EVENTS.
Re-issuing a portal link
If a witness's link has expired:
Re-issuing happens from inside the session, in the witness panel of the video room — not from the session page beforehand.
- Open the session.
- Click Send join link next to the witness's name.
- A new email is sent to the witness automatically, and the fresh link is shown to you so you can pass it on another way if their email is the problem.
This generates a fresh, time-limited portal URL and delivers it to the witness's registered email address.