He sent me his lease the other day and asked me what I thought of it. My first and foremost thought was there needed to be a drinking game to go along with all the "henceforth", "herewith," and "thuslys" that were bandied about in this particular lease. And, I must say, Kudos to Alec for trudging through that lease. I know my head was spinning after I read it.
There were a few things he and I questioned, one being the clause stating how the landlord isn't liable for bodily harm done to tenants under the following circumstances:
Landlord shall not be liable for any damage or injury of or to the Tenant, Tenant's family, guests, invitees, agents or employees or to any person entering the Premises or the building of which the Premises are a part or to goods or equipment, or in the structure or equipment of the structure of which the Premises are a part, and Tenant hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold Landlord harmless from any and all claims or assertions of every kind and nature.
Um... ya... I don't see this holding up in court if the roof collapses.
Then there was this piece of prose that made me scratch my head. I read it to a couple of agents in the office and none of them had any idea what this meant either:
Tenant shall not record this Agreement on the Public Records of any public office. In the event that Tenant shall record this Agreement, this Agreement shall, at Landlord's option, terminate immediately and Landlord shall be entitled to all rights and remedies that it has at law or in equity.Marty Sunshine suggested it meant don't put the lease on the Internet. So, Alec, you might not want to post this. But then again, that might not be what it means either.
Other than a few weird items, the lease looked pretty standard. Though there were two clause number 21 and 22s. That really isn't all that peculiar. I think my lease had two item 12s for a while too.
4 comments:
Both of these clauses are fairly common (in the south at least). The 1st clause is to protect the landlord from tenants guest/relatives falling & suing the landlord and the 2nd clause prevents the tenant from filing their lease with Probate which effectively makes the lease a part of their estate. Should the tenant die, if the lease has been filed with the Court, the landlord cannot enter into the unit, prepare it and rent it to someone else until such time as the Judge says he/she can. If the judge so deems, he/she can block that unit until the estate matters have been fully settled which in some instances can literally be years.
Oh yeah, the first clause more than likely would not hold up in court due to the fact that no contract can legally take away your protections under the law and the right to be compensated for another persons negligence is a protected area per se.Class dismissed
To simplfy then:
Clause 1: Don't hurt yourself and come crying to me. If the roof collapes, definately don't come crying to me.
Clause 2: Don't record this lease or I will kick your butt out into the cold, cruel mid-west winter.
Yeah, pretty much
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