Issues With Standard Forms To Buy And Sell

In some quarters, there is a nostalgic wish for the old days of a "hand-shake" or "back of a napkin" deal. The world is different now.

In almost all real property sales, the purchaser submits a document called an Offer to Purchase to the seller. It outlines the terms on which the purchaser wants to buy the property. The seller can accept or reject the Offer or make a Counter-Offer with different terms. The Offer to Purchase or Counter-Offer, once accepted, is a binding contract between the parties.

Standard form Offers to Purchase are the norm. If they are prepared by a real estate agent, they will be on a set form with a fixed collection of standard terms. But reliance on a standard form, whether in real estate transactions or any other matter can lead to problems. The situation is even more dire if the parties rely on Google for what is supposedly a standard form. "One-size fits all," unless you are looking at a baggy sweater, is rarely true - especially with