When you set your clients up in Jointly you provide their name and email address, and Jointly creates an account for each of them. Two people cannot share one account — so when two clients use the same email address, or one person signs for two parties, you need an email alias.
How do I create an email alias?
Add a + and a word after the username, before the @. Mail sent to an aliased address arrives in the same inbox, but Jointly treats it as a different person — so each one gets their own account, their own documents and their own signature.
The rule is simply that the two addresses have to be different. Each client gets their own personalised email with their own link to the deal, and that is what the different address is for. How you get there is up to you.
If John and Mary Smith both use [email protected], either of these works:
Alias one of them — John stays on
[email protected], Mary becomes[email protected].
Alias both —
[email protected]and[email protected]. Slightly more typing, and it makes it clearer which signature belongs to whom.
You type the alias into the client's email field, the same as any other address, when you add the participant or when you edit them.
The alias works if their mail provider accepts it
Whether a + address is delivered is decided by the client's own email provider, not by Jointly. Most personal email services deliver them normally. Some work and school mail systems reject them outright, and then the message bounces — so the client receives nothing even though the setup in Jointly is correct.
How to tell this is what happened. After a bounce you get an Email bounced notification naming the address, and the participant is flagged with Invalid Email in the deal.
Do not just send it again. Once an address has bounced it is blocked for future messages, so resending to the same alias will not reach them.
Give that person a different real email address instead. If they have no second address, their signature has to be handled outside Jointly.
Both clients will get emails at the same inbox
When you assign tasks to two clients who share an address, the tasks go to both of them — so two notifications arrive at the original inbox. That is expected, not a duplicate or an error.
Each email belongs to one specific person and contains that person's own link. Whoever opens a link signs as the person that link was sent to, so:
Check the name in the email before opening the link.
Each person should use their own email, not forward the other one's.
Someone cannot sign, or is seeing the wrong documents
Check which link they opened first. Opening the other person's link is the most common cause of this, and the quickest to rule out: have them go back to the email addressed to them and use the link in that one.
If they opened their own link and still cannot sign, it is something else — check whether their address has bounced, as above.
A Power of Attorney signing for two parties
Situation: one person signs for two separate parties as Power of Attorney — for example a seller signing for herself and for her husband.
Give each party a different alias built on the Power of Attorney's address. That person can then sign for each client in turn, from a single inbox.
One person signing for two entities or LLCs
The same approach applies when one person signs for two companies on the same address. Use an alias per entity, so each signer exists separately and the right name appears on each signature.
Jointly says I cannot use the same email for both
Two accounts cannot exist on the same email address — that is the rule the error is enforcing, and it is exactly what the alias is for. Give the second person an alias and the error clears.
If the message appears when you believe the addresses are different, check for a trailing space or a typo, and check whether that person is already a participant on the deal under another role.
Changing a client's email address
You can edit a client's email while their account is new. Once the account is more than 30 days old, or the client has logged into Jointly, the email field is greyed out for you.
When it is greyed out, you have three options:
The client changes it themselves in their own profile.
You remove the participant from the deal and add them again with the correct address.
Reach out to support.
When you are also the client on your own deal
If you are the buyer or seller on a deal you are also working as the agent, use the same email address as your agent account. A separate address forces you to log out and back in every time you switch between the agent view and the client view.
Clients without an email address
Do not use your own agent email address for a client. Using the address you sign in with as an agent turns you into the client on that deal.
If a client genuinely has no email address, you can create their account with a placeholder address so the documents can still be drafted. They will not be able to sign electronically, so their signature has to be handled outside Jointly.