Talk is cheap… so write it down.
I have found over the years that a lot of people like to make deals on the fly and that many of these people like for you to take them at their “word”. I think that America has a great history of big deals getting done when two parties sit down across from each other and while looking each other in the eye, shake hands to agree to the basic structure of a deal.
Think of the table that General Lee and Ulysses S. Grant sat at in the Appomattox Courthouse and the magnitude to a nation the surrender of the Confederate forces meant to that agreement. Or the law making in the first congress, historically a noble pursuit, which lead to the U.S. Bill of Rights. While these and many other deals, have sculpted a tradition where honor and character define our greatest advances what few people see is that after these meetings parties go to the drafting boards to write their agreements down. In my very limited history over the past 10 years of working in my field I can confidently say that this is the biggest problem in commercial real estate. So many times I have been told by one party or the other “oh well, he said, she said, he said”, and unfortunately too many times the other party says “that is not what I meant”. Intent is an important goal in communication and intent can be very clearly identified by memorializing your agreements in writing by agreeable terms that both parties are willing to sign.
