Write It Down

I sort of got to thinking about this because of a situation which is going on with some people I know. Anyway here it goes.

In preparedness it is easy to see how people could get into some unorthodox situations when it comes to property, storing stuff and use of property. Looking at my long term plans in the area all of these things will probably be present to some degree.

I think regardless of if you are purchasing something together or storing stuff at someones place or letting someone do X on your land it is essential to write it down.

I am not necessarily going to a lawyer and drawing up a contract though for big transactions or joint land purchases (which I wouldn't do unless it was to immediately sub divide into individual agreed upon parcels with individual deeds) but just smaller more regular stuff.

Case in point-doing it wrong. Girl A has a house and kind of wanted/ needed some help with the mortgage (there is a big fat lesson there but it isn't the point) and Girl B needed a place to live. Girl B moved in and started paying rent which is fine and good. Somewhere along the line they got pretty confused and Girl A believed Girl B had made a year long commitment and Girl B thought it was month to month. That doesn't really matter until Girl B decided to move out. Now Girl A is considering legal action and at best even if cooler minds prevail their friendship is ruined.

Case in point- doing it right. My family friend the Doctor has some land which pretty much lies unused. A friend of his son was super into FFA and agriculture and farming but his folks weren't in a place where he could do that. The Doc and his Wife are really good people and let the friend have a couple cows in their pasture and store feed in the barn. I think he also feed their perpetual cow which I will call hamburger. They sat down with him before kicking this thing off and clearly wrote the roles and responsabilities of both parties in simple language. Everybody knows what they can expect.

My point isn't so much about having a legally binding document though if two people write an agreement in simple language and then sign it that is almost surely legally binding. [I am not a lawyer or anything at all close to it so don't take my ramblings as legal advice unless you are a complete idiot at which point you deserve whatever happens to you.] My point is that if you take the time to think out the issue at hand and write down an agreement and sign it things are clear. In case in point- doing it wrong if the girls had written out a simple agreement (or googled rental agreement) they would have surely covered if it is month to month or a year long lease.

When something is written down it is a lot easier for people involved to go back later after memories have faded and read exactly what they agreed to instead of arguing about what exactly was agreed to.