Click here to see a great example of legalese.
Earlier this year Mobile Community Mangagement initiated an "Emergency Rent Stabilization Program" for qualified residents.
The above MCM notice reads like they are doing you a big favor but don't believe it. To qualify you must agree to and sign an addendum allowing the park "Right of First Refusal." You also have to sign a 23 page addendum that is even more confusing than the original contract. As I understand it, if you sign this agreement, you are allowing the owners to charge you for utilities or services you are not currently being charged for, you are allowing the owner to increase your rent to pay for judgments against the park and you are agreeing to not hold the park owners responsible for failure to maintain the park. There is much more in this paperwork that I don't understand but my main question is this...WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH STABILIZING OUR RENTS??? Are they actually doing you a favor by reducing your rent or are they just giving you a few bucks back so they can put the screws to you later?
At the beginning of this post I provided an example of what legalese can do to masquerade a well known song. Here is an excerpt from page four of the Mobile Community Management addendum that I have been discussing:
"As used in this paragraph, the term "Cost or Expense" means all costs and all expenses paid by Owner in connection with the operation of the Park (computed on a cash basis), including, and without limitation, taxes, licenses, insurance, legal and accounting, judgments (except as otherwise provided in Civil Code 798.42), management fees, repairs and maintenance, salaries, debt service (limited to adjustments to the periodic debt service [excluding balloon principal payments]) calculated as a separate category as to each debt (including any refinancing) of Owner which is or may hereafter be secured by or which otherwise relates or may relate to the Park (but excluding from such calculation that portion of any increase in debt service attributable to any increase in the outstanding principal balance of any debt as of the end of the calendar year first preceding the Annual Rent Increase Date over that which existed as of the end of the calendar year second preceding the Rent Increase Date as a result of any refinancing or new loan obtained during the calendar year first preceding the Annual Rent Increase Date); or pursuant to any contractual obligation of Owner to its lessor(s), or any third parties, and all other ordinary and extraordinary costs and expenses, excluding expenditures which Owner is required to capitalize for federal income tax purposes ("Capital Expenditures")."
That's ONE sentence and what does it mean???!!! One confusing sentence that is 220 words long if my count is correct. This is just a small part of the volumes of legalese you encounter when dealing with our park owners and management. Were these contracts designed to confuse us? Were they designed to to masquerade their true intent? What do you think?
2 comments:
One important thing to keep a good lookout is their staff.
Such nice people trained to flatter you and make you feel at home the day you sing all the documents...
Wait until they evict you.
No sympathy then.
that is very true, they even go as far as to lying under oath in court, that's how it was in my case anyway.
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