Are &quot;To the maximum extent as permissible under law&quot; exemption clauses too uncertain and litigation-prone? This clause is from a commercial landlord's offer in England. Isn't it too disputable and vague?? Firstly, it wrongly assumes that the &quot;law&quot; on exclusion clauses is settled and certain. Perhaps the case law is uncertain. Or there may not even be law. Secondly, it wrongly assumes that &quot;the maximum extent&quot; can be handily identified. Perhaps Landlord and I disagree on what &quot;the maximum extent&quot; is. Thirdly, the &quot;law&quot; can change. Then what's &quot;the maximum extent&quot; or &quot;law&quot;? I communicated these arguments to the Leasing Manager, but she refused to amend this clause. She replied that this clause is part of Landlord's standard form contract, and Landlord almost never amends it for small business owners like me. Is this reasonable? Or must I just push harder? I'm bewildered because I don't want to antagonize Landlord by pushing harder, and I got little bargaining power. I plan to pay a solicitor to review the contract, but the solicitor advised me informally to ask the landlord myself to define the extent of the exclusion clause upfront. Why? If he does it, he'll charge me and he'll be saying the same thing. He advised me to accomplish as much as I can myself before officially retaining him. To the maximum extent as permissible under law, the Landlord shall not be liable to the Tenant, its employees, licensees or invitees in respect of any claim, loss (including but not limited to loss of profits), damage or injury to person or property sustained by the Tenant or any such other person caused by or through or in any way owing to: (i) the adequacy or inadequacy of or any defect in or breakdown, failure, malfunction or suspension of the lifts, escalators, fire services equipment, security, airconditioning system or other facilities of the Building or the electricity, gas or water supply or other building services provided to the Premises, the Building or the Development; or (ii) typhoon or other adverse weather condition or fire or the overflow or leakage or influx of water including rain, storm or sea water or water of any other nature or other substances from or into anywhere within the Building or the Premises or the escape of fumes, smoke, fire or to activity of termites, cockroaches, pests, rats, mice or other vermin in the Building or any part(s) thereof; or (iii) the adequacy or inadequacy or otherwise of or any defect in any of the management services (including security) rendered by the Landlord and/or the Building Manager or the failure to render the same or the suspension or interruption thereof for whatever reason; or (iv) the closure of shopping mall of the Building or any part thereof by reason of any war, hostilities (whether war be declared or not), invasion, act of foreign enemies, revolution, insurrection, or military or usurped power, order or direction of any Authority, riot, commotion, social unrest, strikes, industrial action, lock outs or disorder, or threats of terrorism, or pandemic, or any other contingencies which, in the opinion of the Landlord, may cause or threaten to cause damage or injury to the Premises or the Building or any part thereof or injury or death of person; (v) the letting or leasing of any part of the Building and the Development (except the Premises) to any other party for any purpose whatsoever or any acts, omissions, neglect or default of any other tenants, licensees or occupiers of or of any accident in the Building and the Development.
No, such clauses are precise and common. The landlord wants to say: “we're not liable for anything”. Unfortunately for them, they can't say that because the law might still recognize some liability. So this construction achieves the next best thing: to the maximum extent possible, they will not be liable. What does this mean for you? If you want to sue them because you think they were liable for something, you won't be able to do that successfully – unless you can point to a liability they cannot disclaim. Yes, this might not always be entirely clear but that's why there are courts. On to your concrete objections: Firstly, it wrongly assumes that the &quot;law&quot; on exclusion clauses is settled and certain. Perhaps the case law is uncertain. Or there may not even be law. Which is why this construction says: we don't know where precisely the maximum is, but whatever the maximum is: we want it. Secondly, it wrongly assumes that &quot;the maximum extent&quot; can be handily identified. Perhaps Landlord and I disagree on what &quot;the maximum extent&quot; is. Either you can convince the landlord that they are liable and can settle this out of court. Or you go to court. Then, your opinion doesn't matter, only the court's judgement. Thirdly, the &quot;law&quot; can change. Then what's &quot;the maximum extent&quot; or &quot;law&quot;? This construction avoids this problem because it does not fix a certain list of liabilities that are included or excluded. Instead, it will disclaim maximum liability at any relevant point in time, which will likely be the time of the event giving rise to liability. If new laws are passed, they won't generally apply retroactively. However, new case law could update the interpretation of existing laws. What can you do? This is a business negotiation. You want that the landlord fulfils their duties, and they don't want to be on the hook if something bad happens. In particular, they don't want to be forced to pay for any missed profits or such. Maybe the clauses could be modified to ask for reasonable effort on the part of the landlord to mitigate certain events, in particular with regards to security. But in reality: you will have to get insurance to cover the cases you are concerned about. And some risks are just business risks.
In general, and in particular in New Jersey, a new owner takes possession subject to existing rental agreements, and in particular subject to existing leases, unless there is a provision in the lease to the contrary. This happens automatically, by law. Thus any lease is as enforceable against the new owner as it would have been against the old. But how enforceable is this arbitration agreement? How enforceable would it have been against the old owner O? The basic fact about a month-to-month tenancy is that either party may end it on one month's notice, for any reason or none. Moreover, when a new owner intds to occupy the premises personally, or use them for his or her family, the requirement to honor a previous lease is, in general, not applicable. T might be able to force N to go through arbitration, depending on the wording of the agreement, and on whether the written lease applies at all after the end of the first year (which it may well not). But on the facts as stated in the question, T would lose in arbitration as well as in court, and if there is any increased expense because of the arbitration, T would be obliged tom pay it. Let us look at the actual NJ law N.J.S.A. 2A:18-53 provides that: any lessee or tenant at will or at sufferance, or for a part of a year, or for one or more years, of any houses, buildings, lands or tenements, ... may be removed from such premises by the Superior Court, Law Division, Special Civil Part in an action in the following cases: a. Where such person holds over and continues in possession of all or any part of the demised premises after the expiration of his term, and after demand made and written notice given by the landlord or his agent, for delivery of possession thereof. The notice shall be served either personally upon the tenant or such person in possession by giving him a copy thereof or by leaving a copy of the same at his usual place of abode with a member of his family above the age of 14 years. [emphasis added] Section 2A:18-56 provides that: No judgment for possession in cases specified in paragraph &quot;a.&quot; of section 2A:18-53 of this Title shall be ordered unless: a. The tenancy, if a tenancy at will or from year to year, has been terminated by the giving of 3 months' notice to quit, which notice shall be deemed to be sufficient; or ? b. The tenancy, if a tenancy from month to month, has been terminated by the giving of 1 month's notice to quit, which notice shall be deemed to be sufficient; [emphasis added] Section 2A:18-57 provides that: If no sufficient cause is shown to the contrary when the action comes on for trial, the court shall issue its warrant to any officer of the court, commanding him to remove all persons from the premises, and to put the claimant into full possession thereof, and to levy and make the costs out of the goods and chattels of the person in possession. No warrant of removal shall issue until the expiration of 3 days after entry of judgment for possession, except as provided for in chapter 42 of this Title. Section 2A:18-61.1 provides that: No lessee or tenant or the assigns, under-tenants or legal representatives of such lessee or tenant may be removed by the Superior Court from any house, building, mobile home or land in a mobile home park or tenement leased for residential purposes, other than (1) owner-occupied premises with not more than two rental units or a hotel, motel or other guesthouse or part thereof rented to a transient guest or seasonal tenant; ... except upon establishment of one of the following grounds as good cause ... [emphasis in original] h. The owner seeks to retire permanently the residential building or the mobile home park from residential use or use as a mobile home park But note that good cause is not required for an owner-occupied dwelling with no more than two rental units. T would be wise to consult a lawyer knowledgeable about landlord/tenant law in NJ before attempting to contest the notice or eviction.
First, the clearly redundant phrase is “applicable laws” - these apply to everything. Second, some acts, particularly consumer protection or sale of goods acts imply provisions into a contract, create obligations that sit beside the contract or create equitable remedies. Many of these can be limited or excluded but this needs to be done explicitly. Third, in legal writing, clarity is preferred to brevity - nice if you can get both but if not, be clear rather than brief. Fourth, the contract is not the document. The document is a record of the “meeting of the minds” that formed the contract. In the event of a dispute, it may be useful to know that particular laws were specifically considered by the parties. Fifth, in legal writing, just as all writing, some people are better than others.
It is done to prevent or at least provide a defence against a latter argument based on Estoppel; which at the risk of trivialising something that is very complex means that if you indicate to someone that you will or won't do something and they act on that indication then they may have a claim if you don't do what you indicated. When lawyers say this they are usually outlining a client's possible future actions so estoppel is in play. If they include this they are specifically saying "... But we might not do that."
As user6726 said, a contract to sign away statutory tenant rights is virtually never going to be enforceable. Tenancy is a situation that basically always involves contracts; the whole point of statutory rights is to limit the scope of these contracts. Waiving tenancy rights would be sort of like waiving minimum wage. "Consideration" doesn't change anything, because it's assumed when you're talking about contracts. A contract without consideration is void. However, while your example of consideration isn't really what "consideration" means, it is a possible exception to tenancy rights. Certain situations are generally excluded from statutory tenancy rights; for instance, being in the hospital for two months doesn't make you a tenant. RCW 59.18.050 (to go with user6726's Washington theme) also excludes Occupancy by an employee of a landlord whose right to occupy is conditioned upon employment in or about the premises. In other words: You can provide your employee with housing that they only keep as long as they work for you, and in that case they're not a tenant. A live-in housekeeper is a perfect example of this.
The closest you will get is the first-in-time ordinance passed by the city, but that was overturned in court. That law required accepting the first qualified applicant for a rental: it did not say anything about sales. If there is a specific provision to that effect in your lease agreement, that would be applicable, but there is no general legal mechanism that forces a seller to accept a particular offer.
what responsibilities/liabilities does/will his company have given that it's in possession of my property? None. There is no contract (implicit or otherwise) between the owner and you. The owner receives no consideration from you in exchange for storing your goods, and an essential element of contracts is an exchange of considerations. Thus, he has no obligation to continue storing your goods. Another essential element in contract law is that the agreement --meaning the conditions thereof-- be entered knowingly and willfully. Since the time of making the arrangement and up to now, you were reasonably unaware of the likelihood of an obligation to pay the owner. This preempts the owner's right to start billing you. If anything, you would need to prove special circumstances to avail yourself of a viable claim of promissory estoppel. See Havens v. C &amp; D Plastics, Inc., 124 Wn.2d 158, 171-172 (1994): To obtain recovery in promissory estoppel, plaintiff must establish (1) [a] promise which (2) the promisor should reasonably expect to cause the promisee to change his position and (3) which does cause the promisee to change his position (4) justifiably relying upon the promise, in such a manner that (5) injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. However, the viability and duration of any relief pursuant to promissory estoppel seems very unlikely in the situation you describe. The hardship you are undergoing --and which prompted you to store your goods there-- is unfortunate. But generally speaking, a third party (such as the owner) who is unrelated to the causation or prolongation of that hardship cannot be lawfully forced to aid you for free.
In the real world, the contract could not be enforced, as being unconscionable. See Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Company, 350 F.2d 445. This, from the ruling, seems particularly applicable to TOS conditions: Did each party to the contract, considering his obvious education or lack of it, have a reasonable opportunity to understand the terms of the contract, or were the important terms hidden in a maze of fine print and minimized by deceptive sales practices