Since I am the owner of the property, the ultimate responsibility for
anything to do with that property is mine. A $200k loan out of a portfolio
of several $billion in loans does not strike me as a substantial interest.
On the other hand I have everything to lose, so I need to protect myself.
>
> >And what really annoys me is that they add a clause to the contract saying
> >something like "if any of the clauses in this contract are unenforcable by law,
> >that that invalid clause does not affect the validity of the rest of the
> >contract".
>
> This is frequently referred to as a severability clause.
>
> >I read this as "We will put whatever we like in this contract and
> >it is your repsonsibility to find out whether it is legal or not. If you
> >catch us out, then we won't use the clause that you caught us on, but we'll
> >still use all the others that you haven't".
>
> Then you read it wrong.
>
> You would be plain stupid to sign a contract without such a clause.
>
> Severability clauses protect BOTH parties.
How? If my mortgage contract contains a clause giving the bank the right
to kill me if I do not meet my repayments, but does not include a
severability clause, is the contract legal and valid? I don't think so!
The severability clause only protects one party - the party that drew up the
contract (in this case the bank) IMHO the only reason this clause is
added is to protect the remainder of the contract if one of the clauses is
invalid.
Perhaps if the banks provided more reasonable conditions in their contracts
I wouldn't get so angry. For example, there is a clause in my mortgage
contract that states "The bank or one of its representatives may enter the
property at any reasonable time without notice" or something like that. In
other words ANY employee of the bank may come onto my property at ANY time
(define reasonable :-) To do what they please. Sure this probably will
never happen, but they still have the right to do it if they please for no
reason whatsoever.
Anyway this is getting beyond the scope of the progsoc mailing list, so I
will leave it here. I will not post anymore on this subject, but feel free
to respond and ridicule my legal ignorance as you please :-)
One final question: Who owns my house? Am I the owner (with encumberances)
or is the bank the owner and they are nice enough to let me live in it until
I have paid them in full?
Josh.
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Joshua Pitcher jpitcher@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au
P.O. Box 253 http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~jpitcher
Pymble 2053
AUSTRALIA
University, n.:
Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's
usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to
fix it, and ...
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