Re: How to handle late charges?

[Todd Terry] "Keep in mind that a handshake deal is just as legally binding as a contract written in stone, as long as it meets the three legal requirements for a contract: 1) offer, 2) acceptance, and 3) consideration."

While true to a small degree, it is quickly refuted by...

[Todd Terry] "The only real difference is that a verbal contract is a lot more difficult to prove, if challenged."

I have found ONE TIME where a verbal contract held up. Once. That is it.

Having a verbal contract is as good as no contract at all, in most every case.

I did business on a handshake for years -- but the world is changing. It is a long way back to the dairy I grew up on where men shook hands and gave you their word and you knew it was written in stone because they would sooner lose a limb than break their word. That world is gone in most cases.

Relativism has become the order of the day.

Get a signed contract.

I realize that this seems to refute my post just above, but what I am talking about in each is a reflection on two different types of clients. In my reply to Walter, I am talking about working with your best long-term clients. (Wherein some have done business with you for so long and their word has proven repeatedly to be so good that the necessity of a contract is less of an issue.) But with anyone other than this "select elect" of the client list, avoid a contract to your own peril.

Verbal contracts rarely hold up in any kind of court action should you have to pursue the matter. Contracts are just smarter with the vast majority of situations.

Ron Lindeboom