Post by Shahin AnsariI want to know if Virginia has any restrictions on the content
of a rental agreement.
Yes. See the conclusion of this response for some examples. Others
also could be provided. But since you do not post any information
about the nature of your contemplated rental agreement or about what
(or what you wonder whether would be) law imposed restrictions that
concern you, no one can tell from your posting whether those examples
or others that could be given would be directly relevant to you.
I therefore provide them
- that you may not be asking the most important questions for you
yet
- because you indicate you have reason to believe (might this be
your or the other party's intent?) that what you refer to as the
agreement's content will be partly or wholly restricted by Va. law,
your query's underlying factual specificity is needed to enable a
response applicable in particular to you.
In contrast . . .
Post by Shahin AnsariI have an agent who tells me they can not add the
content I requested to the agreement itself. They
are adding it as an addendum to it with this content.
. . . these statements hint that you ask about a garden-variety
rental contract (perhaps a lease at a modest price for space in a
commercial building where propose to conduct a small business or a
modest apartment and you merely are a bit naive about law-related
terms so that here you are uncertain about a common meaning and effect
re. a written agreement of some attached pages at the end labeled as
an addendum and which contain entirely lawful rather than what you
refer to as restricted provisions.
Assuming for the sake of discussion that the content of your would-be
addendum does not contain provisions against which there are
restrictions in the Commonwealth's law, these are the sorts of
factoids that I began to indicate above which probably make your query
moot while also very puzzling. Simply put, if your counter-party
acquiesces to the terms you requested, then, unless you post facts on
the basis of which one would need to conclude otherwise, it presumably
would be irrelevant that they are expressed in an attachment to the
agreement's main body.
Post by Shahin AnsariWhat are the implications of adding an addendum to a contract?
One, which is more the fact itself than an implication, commonly
arises because many contracting parties especially for mostly
garden-variety matters believe that previously used or comparatively
widely available commercially pre-printed or computer generated
fill-in-the-blanks forms would (mostly) suffice for, here, their
(equipment? real property? vehicle? etc.) rental agreement and that
assumed cost-savings and simplicity rather than dealing with (and
paying) a lawyer make them popular for D.I.Y. purposes.
However, because such form contracts are more or less generic, the
pre-printed form may not have enough blank space and the
pre-programmed such form might not be sufficiently flexible to
accommodate mutually agreed strike-outs and interlineations to modify
and supplement the form for the parties final agreement in particular,
i.e., for which a generic approach is insufficient for them.
Accordingly, if the parties want to use the pre-prepared form anyway
(e.g., because they it includes boilerplate and other provisions they
believe to be desirable) a modifying or otherwise supplementary rider
generally achieves their desired ends.*
[ * Another related implication, perhaps a different way to put this,
could be simply that, after the conclusion of final negotiation, the
party who/which undertook the primary drafting task did not want to
retype the entire pre-printed body plus rider to produce a
cosmetically integrated whole. ]
In sum and as generally also is so for other kinds of contracts in
writing, regardless whether labeled as an Addendum or Attachment or
Annex or Rider or with any other word the final agreement's context
indicates the parties believe has a like effect (and with or without
initial letter capitalization), then -- though perhaps with one
qualification* -- there is nothing special about an addendum to an
underlying form of rental agreement in writing because the addendum
will be treated as incorporated by reference within the underlying
main body so that attached together package will be read, interpreted,
and applied as an integrated whole.
[ * The noted potential qualification (potential because it is to
anticipate not presently knowable facts which, at that, may never
materialize) is that if there is a later dispute between or among the
parties that arises from or otherwise relates to the agreement and if
that dispute eventuates in litigation, and if the court (or, as the
case may be, the arbitrator) reasonably so not arbitrarily or
capriciously decides there is a conflict between what is stated in the
pre-printed portion and in the addendum, the addendum's language
ordinarily would prevail; but as a practical matter, this is just a
way to caution about the need for care in contract drafting. ]
Post by Shahin AnsariIs there a specific way that an addendum would have to be
written in order to be enforceable?
The provisions in the addendum ought be clearly expressed, obviously.
But a specific [sic] way? One cannot know because, as noted, the
answer for you depends on your rental agreement's specific subject
matter on what, specifically, the term/provision in the addendum you
care about would say.
But since you asked and anyway to give some examples of restrictions
imposed by Va. law on rental agreements:
Rental agreements of residences and of almost all commercial
spaces are restricted to behaviors other than the tenant will operate
a meth lab or heroin preparation and selling business or a brothel.
A rental agreement of residential apartment in a
multi-family building would be unlawful (i.e., restricted by law) if
it provides explicitly or in clear effect that the leased premises may
not by used or occupied by any person identifiable by so-called race
or color or by religion or national origin or sex or disability or
because he or she is fifty-five years old or older or by her or his
familial status.
A rental agreement of all or a portion of real property
would be unlawful if it explicitly or in effect provides that the
primary use would be for the tenant or tenant's employees or
contractors, unlicensed medical doctors and other workers who are not
physicians, to perform abortions.
Some kinds of rental agreements are restricted to other than
those that contain a provision that would entitle a party to
indemnification for liability incurred resutling from personal
injuries caused by the party's own recklessness or negligence.
A rental agreement for the use of some kinds of things or of
real property would be restricted to other than one with a pre-injury
release which if enforced would have the effect of precluding or even
reducing an injured party's ability to recover from a tortfeasor.
Some rental agreements of a car might be restricted to those
other than one which disclaims or shifts the requirement of providing
primary liability insurance coverage to insurance the customer
carries.