Under California law, if a legal fee clause is inserted into a contract, a judge will ask for legal fees from the dominant party, regardless of whether the contract provides that only one party should receive a fee. Therefore, if you insert a legal fee clause that only states that you should receive a fee, be prepared to pay the other party`s fees if you lose. Before renting your property, here are the fees you should take into account. In a decision made earlier this year in Bayne v. Smith, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, recently allowed an landlord to recover the legal costs of a failing tenant under the terms of a lease agreement entered into by the parties. The Supreme Court dodged whether the lease was a lease and found that even if the lease was considered one of the responsibilities (which it did not do), “the conditions must be analyzed to determine whether the contract as a whole or certain provisions of it are unacceptable.” The owner of Bayne then appealed the court`s refusal to reimburse the legal fees before the Supreme Court. Instead of certifying whether the tenant did not have a reasonable choice to accept the fee deferral provision, the Supreme Court simply found that the tenancy agreement was a mere bilateral document containing a provision of legal fees that is generally not included in each tenancy agreement. The Supreme Court did not consider that the provision had been improperly favoured by the author of the lease (i.e.dem the lessor, insofar as it allowed the purchase of legal fees from the dominant party. As the Supreme Court found, if the tenant had successfully defended the lessor`s rights, the tenant would have been authorized, under the duty of appeal of the provision, to recover the legal fees as part of the provision for transfer of expenses. The cost of negotiating, amending and completing the lease (designed by the lessor`s lawyers) also depends on the factors mentioned above. In addition, and since the landlord`s lawyer prepares the lease in the first place, it must be amended to ensure that it is more favourable to tenants.

In Bayne, the landlord and tenant entered into a written monthly tenancy agreement. When the tenant did not pay the rent and caused damage to the rented premises, the landlord sued the tenant in front of the local Magisterial Justice District. Following a judgment in favour of the landlord and against the tenant, the Tenant appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. I am surprised at how many landlords do not have a clause in their tenancy agreement that deals with the issue of legal fees and recovery in the event of default by the tenant.