WRITTEN AGREEMENT: WHY YOU MUST ASK FOR IT.

Shola was distraught when her Graphic Designer refused to send her the final design for the business idea she was about to launch. He had claimed that the #3,000 which Shola sent as the fee for his job was not what they had earlier agreed upon, that it was actually #5,000 he said. And not having any written evidences of this their conversation, and very desperate to have the design because of the set deadline, Shola was forced to pay extra #2,000 for what she was sure was not their initial agreement.

I am sure you may have had this very similar experience sometimes in your life; when someone who had verbally agreed with you on a matter suddenly changed their mind and denied ever agreeing to such things. And which you were very sure they did. And it hurts. But you had to let it go, since there was no evidence anywhere to back your claim up.

And you ask yourself, ‘how do I stop this from never happening to me again?’

Well, the best way to prevent this from never happening again is to always make sure you have written evidence penned down whenever you are having a form of business agreement of any sort with people (no matter how very familiar you are with them).

Barr. Akintola Yusuf, an Energy Economics and Law Professional, had this to say on this very important matter;

“General Agreements may be oral or written. But some statutes i.e. laws require some agreements to be written, e.g. statute of frauds say all land agreements (conveyances) must be written. Ditto an agreement for guarantee under the same statute.

The most important reason for having a written agreement is for both parties to have real evidence as opposed for the Court or the adjudicatory body to be looking at conducts and actions of the parties to determine whether a contract exist (oral agreement).”

In short, whenever any serious transaction is about to be finalized between you and anyone whatsoever, you must make them have the agreement written down for future reference to avoid any kind of confusion.

One major thing I have learnt from my current boss is to always ask people to put their words of agreement down in business during negotiations. Simply because words of mouth can always change and be denied if not recorded.

You must understand that written agreement is not only limited to a pen and a paper. It could be as small as a Text message sent as proof, some few lines written and sent as an email, or even WhatsApp texts and some other social media outlets. These when received during an agreement over a business, a job, project, or task can always be tendered as proof in the future to back your claim up in case the other party wants to suddenly deny any parts of the agreements.

Humans can always suddenly want to have a rethink and change midway without the knowledge of the other party. The written Agreement of any form does not pander to changes unless both parties who had earlier agreed come back to the negotiation table to renegotiate the terms and agreement of the contract.

In short, no matter what you do today, as long as it involves money, goods and services exchanging hands, make sure there is some sort of written documentation agreed upon by both parties.

Ask for a written agreement today!

  

Barr. Akintola Yusuf – Twitter [@oladapoyusuf]