Someone signed for another person. Is that valid?
Signature by proxy, commonly known in everyday practice as the fingerprint signature, is the one a third party writes on behalf of someone who cannot sign: an illiterate person, someone who has lost their sight, someone whose arm is immobilised, someone weakened by illness. The third party signs a rogo, that is, at the request of the holder, and the act is completed by the presence of two witnesses who subscribe the document.
Brazilian law recognises this arrangement in more than one place. In a services contract in which one party can neither read nor write, the instrument may be signed by request and subscribed by two witnesses (CC, art. 595, Brazilian Civil Code). In a public deed, if a party appearing before the notary cannot or does not know how to write, another legally capable person shall sign for them, by request (CC, art. 215, § 2). In a public will, if the testator cannot or does not know how to sign, the notary states this and one of the attesting witnesses signs at the testator's request (CC, art. 1,865).
The act is therefore valid. The problem arises when it is used as a facade: the document states that there was a request, but what actually happened was something else.
The popular name explains why so many people look for the examination under that label: in notarial practice and in credit agreements, whoever does not sign presses a thumb in place of the signature, and it is the fingerprint that remains on the paper as the holder's mark. Technically, however, these are two distinct acts and both must be examined: the signature by proxy, written by the third party, and the fingerprint, which is the trace left by the person themselves.
