Jim: What are you reading, dear?

Kerrie: Terry’s article in the front of the magazine. It’s very interesting.

Jim: Why are you reading Terry’s article when we are supposed to be writing ours?

Kerrie: Why aren’t you writing the article while I’m reading Terry’s?

Jim: I’m thinking of subjects – is there anything that we can we steal from Terry? After all, there is no such thing as plagiarism in law practice. Another attorney’s documents are just the first draft of our own. That’s something we can write about.

Kerrie: Do you mean using form documents without understanding all of the terms? That never happens, does it?

Jim: For the sake of this article, let’s pretend that it does. What are some of the pitfalls that could abound by the use of form documents?

Kerrie: I think that you told me once that doctors bury their mistakes, while real estate lawyers record theirs. I was thinking about that when you told me you were drafting a “99 year lease renewable forever” for one of our clients. Forever is a long time. We always say “In real estate, if it is not in writing, it doesn’t exist.” The statute of frauds requires a writing for any transaction involving real estate. The courts take that very seriously and more importantly, the court is going to look only to the written document to determine what the parties meant to say. So it must take legal skill to define “forever” in a lease context for the client.

Jim: You mean that if I use some form which does not say what I think that it does, I could be stuck even though I meant something else.

Kerrie: Absolutely. There are only a few situations where the court will allow evidence of what the parties meant or allow a party to vary the terms of a written document. By that I mean that one of the parties must claim fraud. So choosing an incorrect form could have serious consequences in a real estate transaction.

Jim: But there are some many sources of forms out there. They can be bought at the office supply store or on the internet. In fact, there are entire software programs for legal forms.

Kerrie: There’s an old saying: “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” Real estate laws vary from state to state and what might be an acceptable quitclaim deed in one state, may fail in another. It would be very hard to draft generic documents to cover the real estate laws of the whole country. The problem with prepackaged forms is that the user will not know if the form is right for his or her state or his or her real intent

Jim: You are right. Why even the Great Independent State of Cuyahoga County handles real estate transactions differently that we do here in the southwest part of the state.

Kerrie: So we agree that the use of preprinted forms for real estate transactions can be problematic and it is best to seek the advice of a real estate lawyer.

Jim: How could I not agree? What do you think Terry would say?

Kerrie: I think he would say when in doubt, seek the advice of a real estate attorney