Articles 490 and 493 of the Civil Code stipulate that fingerprints on a contract have the same legal effect as signatures and seals.

This is a new provision and a major legislative highlight. It is not only a legislative recognition of the rules for identifying evidence in judicial practice, but also a legislative recognition of ancient folk customs.

According to Article 32 of the Contract Law: If the parties conclude a contract in the form of a contract, the contract is established when both parties sign or seal it. In other words, a written contract only needs to be signed or stamped by the parties to be established. However, in response to the ancient customary law tradition and urgent practical needs, the Supreme People's Court stipulated in Article 5 of the Judicial Interpretation (2) of the Contract Law that when entering into a contract, a signature or seal must be signed. If fingerprints are used instead of signatures, The court shall determine that it has the same legal effect as a signature or seal.

Why should the legal effect of fingerprinting on a contract be recognized? Because the people in ancient times were not well educated and did not even know how to sign, nor did they have any private seals, fingerprints were the best proof of identity.

This is one reason why fingerprints are so popular. But more importantly, in private economic and social life, many things must be done seriously. In addition to signing and sealing, the parties are required to put their fingerprints on many occasions. For example, in today's real estate transactions, the parties are required to fingerprint their names, transaction amounts, liquidated damages and other core terms; as for the marriage terms agreed upon by both men and women, and the family property division contract, the parties are even more required to sign and press. Mudra.

This may seem trivial and overly cautious, but it avoids possible risks and costs. During the period when housing prices were skyrocketing, my husband sold the house in his own name. Within half a year, housing prices continued to rise. The husband and his wife complained, so the wife came forward and sued her husband for not having the right to take action. She did not agree, so the husband took action unilaterally. The property owned by the couple is acquired. Why do I have a copy of my ID card and signature? Sorry, it was my husband who stole the ID card and signed his name on his behalf, which does not count and cannot have legal effect.

Since the housing reform, especially since the privatization and marketization of housing, there have been more and more such lawsuits. In this way, whether it is truly uninformed or purely moral speculation, it is a potential danger or burden to the buyer, the court, and even the real estate agent, and it may explode at some point. The house buyers were dragged to death, the judges were exhausted, and the intermediaries were also implicated.

Therefore, both the buyer and the real estate agent are beginning to return to the tradition of customary law. After signing and sealing the mortgage, they must also put their fingerprints under the core terms and their own names.

What is the use of fingerprinting on the contract? From a macro perspective, the legal functions of fingerprint pressing are mainly reflected in the following three aspects:

The first function is to confirm identity to prevent counterfeiting. In the era of laser scanning, it is too easy to forge signatures, seals, and fingerprints. But in ancient times, it was easier to forge signatures and seals, but it was too difficult to forge fingerprints. Therefore, according to the laws and judicial interpretations of the Song Dynasty, contracts have legal formats and requirements. Once there are circumstances such as counterfeiting, concealment and deception, everyone must bear legal responsibility, and fingerprints are the most important basis for identity. Therefore, even if you are uneducated, you don’t have to sign, but you must take a prototype.

With the developed economy of the Song Dynasty, various fraud incidents emerged one after another. A large number of day ghosts, iron-boring insects, and flying centipedes appeared, making it difficult for the parties involved to guard against them and the local officials were helpless. "History of the Song Dynasty·Yuan Jiang Biography" records a case where a widow belonged to the middle class and her family had a lot of fertile land. A rogue son named Long tricked the widow's son into gambling and repaying water debts, and asked to use his family's fertile land as collateral. At the end of the night, the widow's fertile farmland was completely destroyed. The widow was furious and called the official to ask for help. Unexpectedly, the scoundrel son not only produced the contract with his son's fingerprints, but the contract also had the widow's signature and fingerprints on it! Therefore, when fighting from the county to the prefecture, the fingerprints are authentic, and the widow can only keep losing. Later, Yuan Jiang came, and the widow beat the Dengwen drum again to cry out for injustice. Yuan Jiang took the contract, looked left and right, and finally discovered the problem; if something goes wrong, there must be a monster. This contract was fingerprinted first and then written.

In other words, the scoundrels cut off the widow's fingerprints that had signed the contract and glued them to the forged contract. I called the scoundrels and asked: Why do you make a model first and then write the contract? The scoundrel son confessed his crime on the spot.

The second function is that fingerprints represent personal credit, which can effectively prevent unauthorized punishment. When the ancients concluded an important contract, sold a house or land, including specific transactions permitted by law, the buyer would customarily require all adult family members of the seller to have their fingerprints taken to prevent them from being informed by the person with authority or close relatives in the future. , claim that the contract is invalid on the grounds of disagreement. For example, in the 10th year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court passed laws and edicts requiring that contracts must be signed or stamped in person, otherwise the contracts would be invalid. In other words, there is no problem with signing the contract, but signing and taking the mold must be done by myself, and no agent is allowed to prevent various abuses.

The third function is to serve as litigation evidence to prevent fraud. As biometric information, fingerprints are difficult to conceal and smear. According to Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Zazu" of the Tang Dynasty, starting from the Tang Dynasty, the economy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was developed, and people wanted to get rich, so some hard-to-prevent contract fraud methods appeared. Some scriveners have a treasure hidden in their solicitation bags: squid ink. The contract was written out in black and white, shiny, and seemed fine on the surface. But after a few years, the paper was still there, but the words were gone. At this time, fingerprints become the only valid evidence - there is no contractual relationship, and if you press fingerprints on a blank piece of paper, it is certainly not performance art, so what does that mean? This will not only help identify the authenticity of the contract, but also help allocate the burden of proof and minimize contract risks.