Crafting contracts may look simple, but clients going it alone may be clueless about the risks involved.
This week I was speaking with a landlord who has his tenant on a lease that the landlord prepared. The lease (like most leases) describes a total amount due under the lease. In this case (as in most cases) the total amount due was equal to 12 times the monthly rent. However, the landlord had scratched out the term and changed it to "indefinite". Both parties initialed that change.
The landlord intended that to mean that the tenant could stay forever, but that there would be annual increases to cover the condominium fee and taxes (which always go up). But the contract seemed to imply that the tenant had a lifetime tenancy. I referred the landlord to an attorney as this could be a real mess.
My advice is don't write your own lease. Simple changes and oversights or errors put both parties at risk for catastrophe.
Source:
Don't Fill in the Blanks
