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Landlords can suck, but most leases are templates, and are not actually written by the landlord. Putting liability on them means that landlords suddenly are req

Landlords can suck, but most leases are templates, and are not actually written by the landlord. Putting liability on them means that landlords suddenly are required to have a legal understanding of contract law (which, as I mentioned, is riddled with concepts like "ordinary wear and tear" and "reasonable accommodations" that aren't cut and dried). What that will do is disincentive individuals from going into the rental market, and consolidate the industry further towards those who have the resources to employ lawyers to draft said contracts and take disputes to court.

mindslight 7y ago
I've personally seen two terrible ones in recent history, and they were terrible precisely because they weren't standard templates. One was a long-winded attorney-crafted legalese designed to mislead tenants. The other was basically a DIY anti-precedent screed against tenant's rights, that loved to use that word indemnify. I was starting to wonder if that landlord had forgone buying property insurance or what. A "template" supplied by an attorney, Nolo, or Staples is not going to create liability for a landlord. That's a complete red herring. Read the pdf I linked for a classification methodology to grade just how brazenly in conflict some clauses can be.
samatman 7y ago
Nonsense, it simply means they switch to templates which don't contain abusive, unenforceable clauses. Lawyers would of course have to draft those templates. But they would rapidly end up being offered for $199 on document-prep websites which sell them already, along with divorce papers and bankruptcy filings.
techsupporter 7y ago
I don't mean to derail this even further but I'm going to anyway. My gut reaction is...So what? Landlords will absolutely hammer tenants over even the slightest thing in a lease (so will tenants, for certain). To require that the contract the landlord puts forward be actually legal and reasonable does not move me in the slightest. The landlord has almost all of the power, both economic and market-moving, and is under no requirement to fairly negotiate a lease with a prospective tenant. This might not be a problem in areas with a glut of rental properties but it is for sure a problem in areas with a glut of prospective tenants. By way of example, I'm living under a lease right now that was presented on take-it-or-leave-it conditions but that I cannot ever fulfill due to at least four requirements I read in it. The most hilarious is the requirement that my pet be covered by a pet license "issued by [local county] for household pets" and failure to have such a license is deemed "a material violation of the lease," subject to immediate notice to vacate when the landlord so chooses. The problem is, I can't ever do that because the county listed happens to contain the city I am in but the county does not issue pet licenses to residents of my city. Only my city does, but the lease does not require a city license; only a county one.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  The point is that increasing the regulatory compliance burden actually gives landlords more power, as it will consolidate property ownership amongst those who have the ability to employ lawyers to argue for the reasonableness of their terms.

mindslight 7y ago

I've personally seen two terrible ones in recent history, and they were terrible precisely because they weren't standard templates. One was a long-winded attorney-crafted legalese designed to mislead tenants. The other was basically a DIY anti-precedent screed against tenant's rights, that loved to use that word indemnify. I was starting to wonder if that landlord had forgone buying property insurance or what. A "template" supplied by an attorney, Nolo, or Staples is not going to create liability for a landlord. That's a complete red herring. Read the pdf I linked for a classification methodology to grade just how brazenly in conflict some clauses can be.

samatman 7y ago

Nonsense, it simply means they switch to templates which don't contain abusive, unenforceable clauses. Lawyers would of course have to draft those templates. But they would rapidly end up being offered for $199 on document-prep websites which sell them already, along with divorce papers and bankruptcy filings.

techsupporter 7y ago

I don't mean to derail this even further but I'm going to anyway. My gut reaction is...So what? Landlords will absolutely hammer tenants over even the slightest thing in a lease (so will tenants, for certain). To require that the contract the landlord puts forward be actually legal and reasonable does not move me in the slightest. The landlord has almost all of the power, both economic and market-moving, and is under no requirement to fairly negotiate a lease with a prospective tenant. This might not be a problem in areas with a glut of rental properties but it is for sure a problem in areas with a glut of prospective tenants. By way of example, I'm living under a lease right now that was presented on take-it-or-leave-it conditions but that I cannot ever fulfill due to at least four requirements I read in it. The most hilarious is the requirement that my pet be covered by a pet license "issued by [local county] for household pets" and failure to have such a license is deemed "a material violation of the lease," subject to immediate notice to vacate when the landlord so chooses. The problem is, I can't ever do that because the county listed happens to contain the city I am in but the county does not issue pet licenses to residents of my city. Only my city does, but the lease does not require a city license; only a county one.

the_watcher 7y ago
The point is that increasing the regulatory compliance burden actually gives landlords more power, as it will consolidate property ownership amongst those who have the ability to employ lawyers to argue for the reasonableness of their terms.