You may have noticed over the past several posts that we have been discussing the details within a lease and have provided a few examples of some of the important items to consider when entering into a rental agreement. These particulars in a lease are akin to the minute differences you may find in different beers, especially homebrews.
A recipe for a good beer is like an agreement: If you miss a step, it is going to hurt the final product. We have discussed the importance of each clause in a rental agreement and how the Finnegan law firm has highlighted some of the most relevant items in the California Association of Realtors month to month rental agreement. Some people who homebrew wheat beers may be surprised that all of their beers are satisfying and worth making again, while others are surprised that the wrong proportions of hops can destroy the whole batch.
If you make your beer the same way every time, you will understand the process better than if you make them different ways every time. Designing a new recipe for the next batch, you can start moving the hops amount one-way and the malt ingredient the other way, or even change the temperature at which the hops are added at. There is a fine correlation between knowing your beer ingredients and knowing your lease clauses.
The answer is much the same for both beer and rental agreements: knowing what you are working with. A proverbial taste test of a potential rental agreement is much like tasting a homebrew. As you read through the document, ask yourself these questions:
- Is each provision of the rental agreement where it should be? (i.e. Does this belong in the terms and conditions of the agreement, or is this a point of clarification separate from the agreement?)
- Am I satisfied with what the clause is saying? (i.e. Is the rental rate set at an agreeable amount for both parties?)
- Am I missing any important provisions present in other agreements? (i.e. Does my new favorite craft brewery have an alcohol content I enjoy, or does it have a taste that I would like to avoid in the future?)
Another way to think about it – a great beer that you want to buy more and more of is like a two-year lease you can take advantage of again and again before it expires. The difference is some agreements encourage landlords who have a limited stock of good tenants to keep them on month-to-month lease after they have demonstrated their value. The landlord gets the same amount of rent but can adjust it to the market every month. You can think of this like a ‘special release’ from one of your favorite craft breweries. The problem is that month to month scalability makes it difficult to plan for the future. It is essentially a choice between having your cake and eating it too: you can choose to have a consistent drinking experience you know you love, or you can deliciously broaden your horizons. It may be that the beer you love to enjoy would be even better on draft and brewed in larger batches.
The first step to enjoying a great beer is knowing what you like, and knowing how it is made. The same thing can be said of the rental agreement. If you don’t know how a great rental agreement is made, you will not appreciate it well enough to examine it properly. Just like enjoying a good beer often makes you want another sip, negotiating a high-quality lease helps you satisfaction with your choice. In other words, the more you appreciate it, the more you want it. It is important to remember that the association whole of the contract is more important than the individual clauses of the agreement. Just because one brew may have a high alcohol content, does not mean that this will automatically be the case across the board for every alcohol-enthusiast’s favorite craft brewery.
For more information on rental agreements, you can visit Nolo’s guide to rental agreements.