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by JohnFen 1074 days ago
> I don't think that would work in the US.

I think it would. Verbal and "casual" contracts are binding in the US. The reason it's advised not to do business that way is the difficulty in proving the contract was agreed to in court, not that such contracts aren't valid.
1 comments
LinuxBender 1074 days ago
I probably worded that poorly. By not working what I meant was that there are a lot of disingenuous people and we are very litigious in the US. I can't imagine verbal contracts being honored by the majority unless there are many witnesses. I mean, people dispute their actions even when caught on multiple cameras.

It's just been my experience probably based on the best practices you describe that I always had to have a notary and physical ID for anything involving significant liabilities. But even significant liabilities now seem to just be digital which seems risky to me. Perhaps Covid pushed banks into accepting those riskier liabilities.

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JohnFen 1073 days ago
Ah, I understand.

I have entered into verbal contracts and haven't had any real issues with them. I strongly prefer written contracts, though, because the process of hashing out a contract clarifies assumptions and misunderstandings that may not be apparent to each party until they see things put down in black and white.

The value of a contract is that it makes the terms very clear to both parties instead of relying on the other party understanding what I "obviously" meant (and vice versa).

That said, I also noticed something over the decades: I can tell the level of trust I have with a party based on how thick the contract is. If we don't trust each other, the contract will get very thick as we each try to make sure that there is no loophole the other can take advantage of.

With a high degree of trust, the contract tends to be much more brief. With a very high degree of trust, the contract can literally be a talk over coffee and a handshake.

So it all depends.

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dragonwriter 1073 days ago
> I can't imagine verbal contracts being honored by the majority unless there are many witnesses.

Evidence of the content and acceptance of contracts that aren’t signed writings can be hard to establish, but this very case shows that it is not impossible, especially when they aren't literally oral contracts (“verbal” just means “in words”; written contracts are verbal, but not oral, agreements.)

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