Contract Form

[Burns]

Chewie brought up an interesting thought about a contract form and the option for people to call onto admin powers to get their stuff back, to promote the lease of items. So, after some internal discussion and tweaking, here's the form

How to: Just fill in names, dates and terms at the points where you see [ and ]. Points that say 'optional' should be deleted if you don't need them, it gets confusing if you leave them blank. Read carefully before use, specially point VIII!

 

Lease Agreement

between [Owner of the Item] (referred to as 'Owner')
and [Leaseholder] (referred to as 'Leaseholder')
on the day [] of year []

I.
The object of the following agreement is the item
[Name]
with the unique ID
[ID]
and the ability to
[]
(referred to as 'Item').

II.
The parties agree on a rental fee of [silver, gold, creatures, whatever].

II. a. (optional)
The parties agree upon a security deposit of [whatever].

III.
The lease expires 
(optional): after [x] uses of the item, but at latest
on [day, year].

IV.
The Owner agrees to transfer the Item to the Leaseholder once the agreement is finalized
(optional: before the end of [day, year]).

V.
The Leaseholder agrees to transfer the rental fee (optional: and the deposit) once the agreement is finalized
(optional: before the end of [day, year])

and to provide the current ITC to the Owner.

VI.
The Leaseholder agrees to transfer the Item to the Owner before the end of the expiration date [day, year]
(optional: or after [x] uses)

and the Owner agrees to not use the ITC before this time.

VI. a. (optional)
The Owner agrees to return the security deposit to the Leaseholder within [x] days after receiving the Item.

VII.
The Leaseholder agrees to have the Item taken from him by a Game Admin upon official request of the Owner after the expiration date.

VIII.
To request Admin assitance for the return of an item, the Owner needs to provide a screenshot of the Leaseholder stating the item name and expiration date in chat as well as the last known ITC.

IX. (optional)
The Leaseholder agrees to pay a penalty of 1 Silver Coin to the Owner for each full day after the expiration date until the Owner receives the Item / for each use exceeding the agreed number of uses.

[Chewett]

Thanks burns! Sorry I didn't get around to posting this! I will write an announcement when I get home

[Ledah]

Out of curiosity, in order for this to be valid and 'guaranteed' to get the item back, are we not allowed to modify the contract? For example, I'd like to put a higher penalty for keeping the item longer, as well as not permitting sub-leasing the item as things could get messy.

[Chewett]

10 hours ago, Ledah said:

Out of curiosity, in order for this to be valid and 'guaranteed' to get the item back, are we not allowed to modify the contract? For example, I'd like to put a higher penalty for keeping the item longer, as well as not permitting sub-leasing the item as things could get messy.

I would defer to Burns for his opinion here and would support his opinion

[Burns]

Heh, we didn't even come up with sub-lease, sounds rather unlikely, too...

I can't see how a sub-lease weakens your position, though? Once the time you agreed on expires, you get your item back, no matter what the other party does with the third party...

I can't see a problem with sub-lease, please do enlighten me.

 

About the silver, if you wish to do more, feel free. There's no admin warranty on that part, though, admin powers only get you the item returned, i hope that's clear.

 

[Ivorak]

1 hour ago, Burns said:

I can't see how a sub-lease weakens your position, though? Once the time you agreed on expires, you get your item back, no matter what the other party does with the third party...

I can't see a problem with sub-lease, please do enlighten me.

One issue with a sublease is that the third-party may be the one that isn't trustworthy. It may slow down the process of getting the item back, especially if the original lessee doesn't have a similar contract with the sub-lessee.

Or perhaps you don't want to work with certain individuals. This helps prevent them from going through a friend to get their hands on your item.

---

On a separate topic, what's the preferred method for signing contracts? I'm thinking something like this process:

1. Agree on a contract informally through PMs
2. Once the text of the contract is agreed upon, the lessor posts the contract text in the proper forum
3. The lessee confirms the contract with an affirmative reply to the topic.

But what if the lessee then edits their response? Also, this seems like a good way to clutter the forum with posts that are irrelevant to most other players. And what if the contract also involves secrecy, or is an non-disclosure agreement rather than a lease?

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Ivorak
Added second section

[Ledah]

Ivorak sums up my concerns about sub-leasing: It essentially makes the contract, a form of control, far riskier or even worthless. Also, about the silver, or any other penalty, is the payment of that based on some kind of Scout's Honour then, or do you go to Judges to recover that? I suppose what I'm trying to figure out is, what is guaranteed to be protected, aside from the return of the item? Can we make any conditions we want confident that it will be enforced  through Admins/Judges? Or are there only certain guarantees, like the return of the item, and it being conditional on following this pro forma you posted?

[Burns]

Ad Sub-Lease: That's exactly what we had in mind when we made it, all those constructions won't matter. Once your time expires, you can demand your item back, regardless of where / on whom it currently is. It wouldn't matter whether your lessor leased it to someone else, sold it, gave it away, or simply tries to hide it, you just get it back.

Ad Formality: We discussed posting it on the forum, but we figured it'd clutter the forum needlessly, and some people would want to keep secrets. We tried to make a failsafe for the people who would attempt to alter the text afterwards in a simpler way instead, that's how VIII. got in there. We figured the process to be like this:

1. Agree on terms, in any way you like, can be chat, forum, PM, out-of-game, it really doesn't matter. Just like you would have done anyway, basically.

2. When you have an agreement, you have your lessor print the essentials in chat: "Burns: Renting RainCollector, expiration date day 310". and make a screenshot of that. That gives us the name of your lessor, the item, and the expiration. Since you have the contract form (at least from your side), you also have the item-id and can provide that and the last itc you knew. That way seemed safe enough during discussion, in all directions. And it gives you the option to go to a secluded area, keeping it as secret as it gets.

Ad "What do i get back": The intention is to guarantee the return of your item, nothing more. The fee, penalty, and any other conditions go to judges if you want to make your claim, and might take a while to process, and there's the chance we don't believe you about some parts. Having the contracts strengthens your position, obviously, but we'll still need to make sure it isn't forged.

Your item comes flying back practically at once, though, since you provide everything that's required to grab it right from the database. That's a pretty nice security already imo, wouldn't you agree?

[Ledah]

Yes, I would agree that's nice security, thanks for clarifying So the only other risky bit I see now is sub-leasing an item whose contract expires with the original person before yours. But I suppose that would be a matter for judges.