Some concepts are so simple that we never think that we’d have to point them out. But, today, one of those concepts occurred to us, and we’d like to share it with our readers. Here it is:
If you are going to craft documents, be they leases, purchase agreements or ‘whatever,’ you should know what you are doing.
Experience can be a good teacher, if your experience is good. Bad experiences could be a good teacher as well if you learn (quickly and correctly) and especially if they were someone else’s bad experiences.
Today’s blog posting was triggered by a nearly year-old Maryland court decision. The particular problem pointed out by the court, however, is something we’ve seen played out more than several times over the years. In this version, it involved a right and option provision amended into an existing lease. The relevant text read as follows: [Read more…]
Let’s get out in the world. Let’s leave our silos. Let’s break through the real estate bubble. What is Ruminations babbling about? Real property law is not an island unto itself. It is part of the entire body of law. Yet, even those few of us who search for “real” law don’t often look at what courts say in other areas. There are things that can be learned by leaving the real estate tent to see how the rest of the (law) world lives. Today’s blog posting could show why we need to take such strolls. It describes a court decision about how to interpret a seemingly unambiguous trust document. There’s a story behind it and here it is.
We’ve written about arbitration a few times and made reference to this alternate dispute resolution process in several blog postings over the years. [For example, click: 
The augurs of ancient Rome prognosticated by inspecting the entrails of birds. Similarly, courts divine meaning by interpreting the detritus of our documents. When we don’t leave a clear message behind, those who follow get to tell us what the words we used meant. Sometimes they are right; sometimes not.
Yes, many readers may have heard whispers (or stage whispers) about the demise of LIBOR. Well, it goes on life support on December 31, 2021 and that might also be the date of its death. That’s when the banks that provide its underlying data will no longer be obligated to do so. Who cares? Those who set borrowing interest rates certainly do. Those who have loan documents based on some spread over a LIBOR rate where those documents didn’t consider a back-up rate if LIBOR ever went away care even more. 
It is Labor Day weekend (and the start of Labor Day week). Ruminations has tried to present short blog postings on such weekends. Frankly, we’ve not been successful. Today’s posting is yet another attempt. So, with 30 words already behind us, here we go.
When a carpenter or other craftsperson needs to make “that final adjustment,” she or he reaches into the toolbox and out may come a shim. We’ve all seen shims used, but not everyone knows they have a name. Those wedges, washers, and thin strips of material used to align parts or make them fit are called “shims.” We who draft agreements of every type also use shims. Reluctant as Ruminations is to use the word “all” and mean “all,” today’s use seems accurate. Who among us hasn’t slipped in at least one “notwithstanding anything to the contrary” into every agreement longer than several pages? That’s using a shim because it makes the parts of the agreement “fit” together.
Imagine you are the computer user of the century. There is nothing about using a computer you don’t know. [So you think.] Your friends call you day and night asking, “How do I do this; how do I do that?” Coding? – No problem. Formatting to produce a publishable book using Microsoft Word? – No problem. Manipulating data to prove or disprove human involvement in climate change, if there is such a thing? – No problem.
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