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And the lawyers foil me again
It never ceases to amaze me what people put in their contracts. Today I got a fresh example of this. I went to the main office of Trinity Management Services at 333 Bay St, San Francisco, CA, 94133 in order to sign a contract for one of their properties. The package they gave me was more than twenty pages, including the various appendages (e.g. lead paint, mold, bed bugs, rules and regulations, etc). There were a number of problems, most of which were just issues with the wording, not with the intent, and I was able to sort those out with the leasing agent. Unfortunately, there was one dealbreaker that we could not resolve, so I wasn't able to sign. They've kicked it upstairs to management, who will look at it tomorrow and get back to me.
For a specific example of one of the stupid things that we DID manage to resolve: "No storage space outside of the Premises is [...] permitted[....]"
What they meant was: "No storage space INSIDE THE BUILDING BUT outside of the Premises is [...] permitted[....]" In other words, the point was to keep people from storing junk on the balconies, in the halls, etc, not to keep us from hiring space at an offsite public storage facility (which, as written, this wording does).
The big one, however, was the item about guests:
*) p3, item 12: "Resident may not have guests on the Premises for more than seven (7) consecutive days or more than fifteen (15) days in
any calendar year without the prior written consent of Landlord. [Several sentences ellided] Violation of...this section...is agreed to be just cause for eviction."
This is later restated in slightly different terms as:
*) p22, "Guests", subitem 1: "No persons other than the Resident and authorized occupants identified on the Rental Agreement may occupy your apartment for more than 7 consecutive days or 15 days in a calendar year without the prior written consent of Landlord. [...] Failure to follow this procedure will be considered a material breach of the Agreement and may result in legal action."
What they are TRYING to say is "you won't sublet the apartment, you won't create a nuisance to the neighbors by having excessive foot traffic, and you won't install another person as a permanent resident with you." All of which I'm fine with, but as written this says that if I got a girlfriend and had her over once a week for 4 months, they could evict me. That's a dealbreaker.
The part that frustrates me is that I know I could just sign this and then ignore the stupid wording, follow the intent (which I would do anyway), and I'd be fine. That feels like breaking my word, though--I'm signing a legally binding contract that says I will (not) do something, and then I'm breaking that commitment. It should not be up to me to interpret what they **meant**, it should be up to them to write their meaning into the contract in the first place.
So, we'll see what happens tomorrow.
For a specific example of one of the stupid things that we DID manage to resolve: "No storage space outside of the Premises is [...] permitted[....]"
What they meant was: "No storage space INSIDE THE BUILDING BUT outside of the Premises is [...] permitted[....]" In other words, the point was to keep people from storing junk on the balconies, in the halls, etc, not to keep us from hiring space at an offsite public storage facility (which, as written, this wording does).
The big one, however, was the item about guests:
*) p3, item 12: "Resident may not have guests on the Premises for more than seven (7) consecutive days or more than fifteen (15) days in
any calendar year without the prior written consent of Landlord. [Several sentences ellided] Violation of...this section...is agreed to be just cause for eviction."
This is later restated in slightly different terms as:
*) p22, "Guests", subitem 1: "No persons other than the Resident and authorized occupants identified on the Rental Agreement may occupy your apartment for more than 7 consecutive days or 15 days in a calendar year without the prior written consent of Landlord. [...] Failure to follow this procedure will be considered a material breach of the Agreement and may result in legal action."
What they are TRYING to say is "you won't sublet the apartment, you won't create a nuisance to the neighbors by having excessive foot traffic, and you won't install another person as a permanent resident with you." All of which I'm fine with, but as written this says that if I got a girlfriend and had her over once a week for 4 months, they could evict me. That's a dealbreaker.
The part that frustrates me is that I know I could just sign this and then ignore the stupid wording, follow the intent (which I would do anyway), and I'd be fine. That feels like breaking my word, though--I'm signing a legally binding contract that says I will (not) do something, and then I'm breaking that commitment. It should not be up to me to interpret what they **meant**, it should be up to them to write their meaning into the contract in the first place.
So, we'll see what happens tomorrow.