Comment by tty74

> And, as long as it doesn't breach any explicit laws, that condition is equally enforceable.

That isn't true; if the court concludes that no reasonable person would ever have knowingly agreed, it will find that the condition is unenforceable. It's a real standard, but I don't recall the relevant technical terms.

Obviously it's hard to meet that standard, but breaching an explicit law is very much not a requirement for unenforceability.

edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_v._Walker-Thomas_Furn....

> when a party of little bargaining power, and hence little real choice, signs a commercially unreasonable contract with little or no knowledge of its terms, it is hardly likely that his consent, or even an objective manifestation of his consent, was ever given to all the terms.

> In such a case the usual rule that the terms of the agreement are not to be questioned should be abandoned and the court should consider whether the terms of the contract are so unfair that enforcement should be withheld.

Anyone who says what "US law" is, regarding property rental contracts, is either generalizing or doesn't know what they're talking about. Landlord/tenant law is one thing that varies quite a bit from state to state and it is mostly out of scope of federal law.

And furthermore, it's a common misconception that something is 'legal' to stipulate just because they've seen it in their contracts before. People put unenforceable crap in contracts all the time because 9/10 people will just believe it's enforceable and go along with it.

The extreme condition you are talking about often will be unenforceable. It doesn't stop people from trying, though.

Generally, contracts on the US where there is one party who writes them and another party who doesn't get to edit them (leases, employment contracts, etc.) have a lot of case law about what can and can't be enforced on the party who doesn't have authorship control. Contacts where both parties are writing them have a lot more freedom to screw a participant, but also generally savvier participants.

Fair; but my point is more-so, if there was a Page 27 at the end that inserted some unusual terms, it'd be really obvious because it wouldn't look like all the templated stuff before it, and anyone reasonable would catch it. Its also a lot less tiring to read through those preceding 26 pages because its all templated, and you're really just reading the custom notes and checkboxes and such.

I don't feel its unreasonable to read through a dozen or two pages of contracts for something like a rental lease that will eat up 30% of your income for the next year; and I've never felt that my city/state is in dire need of improving the situation. The problem with online service terms is more-so that: they aren't standardized, they all say different things, they oftentimes claim things that aren't legally enforceable, they're usually a UI afterthought... they're just bad. We do need some kind of legislation for those. I don't feel that requiring a summary is the answer.

My brother got zinged with this. "You must repaint the house after moving out." He wasn't even there for a year.

He's a good, law abiding fellow, so he did it. It was the last thing he needed to deal with on top of all the stress of moving. I would have just ignored it, let them take me to court if they want.

I don't pity anyone that can't be bothered to read their lease before signing. If we can't read 30 page contracts as a society then the contracts are not the problem, we are.