the clauses people get stuck on.
9 lines that turn up in small-company paperwork constantly, and stop people signing. Each one read word by word, with the wording that changes what it does.
these pages say what the words mean. they do not say what to do about them, and they are not legal advice.
what indemnify and hold harmless actually means
To indemnify someone is to promise to cover their losses. Hold harmless is the same promise from the other end: they are not left carrying the cost.
does an NDA expire if it has no end date
An NDA carries 2 separate clocks, and people read the wrong one. One is how long the agreement is live and information passes under it. The other is how long the duty to keep quiet lasts after that.
what joint and several liability means in a lease
Every person who signed owes the whole amount, not their share of it. The landlord can pursue all of them together, or any one of them alone, for the full sum.
can you cross out a clause before signing
You can strike a line, but doing it does not remove the clause. It turns the document back into an offer, on new terms, that the other side has not agreed to yet.
how long you have to cancel after signing
There is no general right to cancel a contract in the US because you changed your mind. A signed contract binds when it is signed.
what a personal guarantee means on a lease
You are promising to pay the tenant's obligations out of your own money if the tenant does not. Your own money means your salary, your savings, and anything else a judgment can reach.
what a binding arbitration clause means
A dispute goes to a private arbitrator instead of a judge and jury. The arbitrator's decision settles it, and a court will normally enforce that decision as if it were its own judgment.
what entire agreement means in a contract
It says this document is the whole deal, and that nothing said or written before it counts. Emails, calls, demos, proposals, and pitch decks stop having contractual effect on signature.
what an automatic renewal clause means, and how to cancel
It means the contract renews itself for another term unless you cancel in a specific window before the current term ends. Doing nothing is what causes the renewal, not what prevents it.
why these are here
a document does not stall because someone refuses to sign it. it stalls on one line nobody explained.
that is the job sign does on every signing page: the summary sits above the document, before the signature box, so the person being asked to sign knows what they are agreeing to.
not a clause, but the signing itself
do you have to sign every page of a contract, or only the last page · what happens if you sign a contract and never get a copy · can you get out of a contract you already signed · how to read a contract in plain english · do you have to sign electronically · what happens if you sign a contract with blank spaces
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