contract form and common practice

petargraso

Hi all,

I am looking for an answer of what is the practice in Ireland regarding form of contracts. Is it common to use a standard form for property, employment and similar.

What would a handwritten note, crossed paragraphs and similar additions on a contract present at signing mean in case of a dispute.

Peregrinus

Depends on what the changes say, how clear it is what they say (you'd be surprised how sloppy people can be) and, crucially, whether there is evidence that both parties knew about and agreed to the changes made - i.e. was each change initialled by both parties?

Victor

Most standard contract documents allow for the terms to be added - who, what, when, how much, etc.

Standard contract documents, some of them across entire industries (or large parts thereof) are quite common. Handwritten amendments will be relatively rare. For example, in construction contracts there are perhaps 5 standard contracts that will account for 95%+ of contracts over €200,000. Certain specific clauses, e.g. price variation clauses are crossed-out in a certain percentage of contracts and it is common practice.

Many other industries will have pre-written contracts where each business's contract will have many common elements, some of them sacrosanct, but with certain customisation, e.g. leases or wholesale supply contracts. The supplier usually insists on their own contract and amendments are relatively rare. If the buyer has sufficient commercial strength, they will insist on their own contract.

Many employment contracts will be employer specific.

"What would a handwritten note, crossed paragraphs and similar additions on a contract present at signing mean in case of a dispute." - typically any amendments would be signed or at least initialled by both parties. There would be some scepticism in any adjudication if handwritten amendments weren't signed or initialled by both parties.