Kraft Law Firm Blog

In just a few days, half the country will experience a total eclipse of the sun. There is much excitement and nervousness in towns from Oregon to Georgia. People everywhere are travelling to the totality zone to catch a peak. Hotels, Bed and Breakfasts and most camp sites have long waitlists; so naturally, many people who want to be part of the phenomenon have limited options.

Are you shopping for a new home or condominium? Are you selling? Have you made or accepted an offer yet? No doubt you were asked to sign a standard offer form that brokers commonly use when you’re ready to get to business. Here in Eastern Massachusetts, very commonly the brokers use the Greater Boston Real Estate Board (GBREB) form, but there are others and some use their own standard forms. Do you really know what you are signing when you put your John or Jane Hancock on that offer? Is it safe?

Thanks to the Internet, starting a new business doesn't have to be an ordeal. There are many websites, like LegalZoom and RocketLawyer that will guide you through the process of incorporating or filing an LLC. But is that enough? Hardly. A primary purpose of filing is to protect you from claims against your personal property and family assets. You need some comprehensive (but not costly) legal advice that these sites cannot offer. In fact, they tell you right up front that they do not offer legal advice.

As a small business owner, you depend on prompt payment for your success. So often I find that collection problems are directly related to misunderstandings about what is expected of each party. Written contracts help avoid confusion, document the understandings, establish trust and elevate you to a more professional level. Your contract does not need to be a 12-page document full of boilerplate and legalese. In fact, keeping things simple and easy to read can often serve you and your customers best. The scale of the job and other circumstances will dictate how detailed the contract need be, but depending on your business and the scale of the job, a single page with just a few paragraphs might be all you need.

When do I have to vacate my apartment? Can I leave in the middle of my lease? Can I stay few days longer if I need time before my new space is ready? My landlord says I have to get out before noon on the 31^st because he needs time to clean the apartment for the new tenants - can he do that? I am a landlord - can I start showing the apartment before my tenant’s lease is up? Do I have to give notice?

One of the difficulties faced by young people, especially those in our pricier urban areas, is finding an affordable place to live. It’s a natural and inevitable reaction to seek out roommates or housemates to share the expense.

I used to believe, naïvely perhaps, that arbitration was a sensible way to resolve business disputes. I bought into the hype that arbitration would be resolved more quickly and in a more cost-effective manner than traditional litigation. I was also impressed by the promise that so-called experts would be resolving the cases rather than judges with little experience in the issues.

There are many ways in which landlords can cross the line and get into serious trouble with their tenants, but perhaps the easiest is by misappropriating their security deposit. The security deposit belongs to the tenant, not the landlord. Period. End of story.