On Mar 29, 5:22 am, Paul Cassel <pcasselremo...@comremovecast.net> wrote:
> John A. Weeks III wrote:
>
> > The question is if anything is in writing. In real estate, unlike
> > any other contract law, nothing else matters other than what is
> > put down on paper.
>
> I've seen this said many times in this forum, but never with a cite. Why
> do you say that real estate contracts differ from all others?
I'm guessing that John is referring, in non-professional language, to (1) the Statute of Frauds (different citation for each state, but basically similar, and all based on a pre-colonial English statute) which requires contracts for an interest in land to be in writing; and (2) the fact that, because realty is such a valuable asset and therefore people are expected to be extremely careful in dealing with it, the courts are generally unwilling to carve exceptions to the SOF to relieve a litigant who has made a bad decision in that regard. So if you don't put it in writing, the other side is not going to be bound by an oral agreement if a dispute arises and lands in court.
But IMO John goes overboard in saying this is "unlike any other contract law" since the SOF applies not only to realty transactions but to many other kinds of contracts, including suretyship or guarantee agreements for the debt of another, contracts that can't be completed in one year, and sale of goods worth more than $500.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal
matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a
private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
No comments:
Post a Comment