Protect Your Texas Business : Texas Business Agreements
At The Nacol Law Firm PC, in Dallas, Texas, we offer legal services related to a range of business transactions for entrepreneurs and commercial enterprises of all sizes in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex and surrounding counties.
The business transactions our law firm handles include:
- Entity selection
- Business structure counseling
- Contract negotiations and drafting
- Partnership/shareholder/licensing/supplier agreements/ non-disclosure and anti-compete agreements
- Warranty development
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Trademark and trade name applications and registrations
- Business governance
- Business succession planning
- Corporate, LLP, and LLC organization
When you turn to our firm for legal help with crucial business transactions, it is a wealth of experience gives our attorneys an edge in preparing sound transaction documents crafted to protect your best interests and avert future conflicts and liability.
For more information on business transactions, from Dallas Business Attorneys at the Nacol Law Firm, contact us today at (972) 690-3333.
HOA Litigation in Texas
Texas Home Owner Associations ( HOA ) : Are You in For Problems?
A HOA has the power to make every neighbor’s’ life a little easier by establishing restrictions that keep the neighborhood clean, safe, and accountable.
But certain issues , depending on the by-laws of your HOA, such as unjustified forced foreclosures, failure to repair plumbing or foundations, trying to force you to construct or build a fence on your separate property are worth seeking legal advice. An experienced attorney is needed if you are to take on a Texas Home Owner’s Association. Many HOA by-laws are open to interpretation regarding what a Texas HOA must repair and what is not responsible for under the HOA by-laws. To battle a strong HOA organization it takes an experienced real estate lawyer and if you have been a victim of HOA oppression seek an experienced lawyer immediately.
Julian Nacol
Dallas TX Attorney
Nacol Law Firm P.C.
(972) 690-3333
Contesting a Will in Texas
Typically, standing to contest the validity of a Will is limited to two classes of persons:
1) a person who is named on the face of the Will (i.e. any beneficiary); and 2) a person who would inherit from the testator if the Will was invalid.
The most common grounds, or reasons, for contesting a Will are:
- Undue influence – is an equitable doctrine, which involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person. In such cases, free will to bargain is not possible.
- Duress
- Election against the Will by a widowed spouse or orphaned children
- Fraud – a deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual
- Insane delusion
- Testamentary capacity (same as a lack of disposing mind and memory) – in the common law tradition, testamentary capacity is the legal term used to describe a person’s legal and mental ability to make a valid Will. This concept has also been called sound mind and memory.
Adults are presumed to have the ability to make a will. Litigation about testamentary capacity typically revolves around charges that the testator, by virtue of senility, dementia, insanity, or other unsoundness of mind, lacked the mental capacity to make a will. In essence, the doctrine requires those who would challenge a validly executed will to demonstrate that the testator did not know the consequence of his conduct when he executed the will.
Certain people, such as minors, are conclusively deemed incapable of making a will by the common law; however, minors who serve in the military are conceded the right to make a will by statute in many jurisdictions.
Getting a Divorce from Your Addict Spouse
Has the time come to seriously start thinking about divorcing your Addict Spouse? After much heartbreaking soul searching has the time to break the downhill addictive spiral come for you and your family? Have you decided to stop the instability and damaging personal assaults the addictive spouse and parent has inflicted on the entire family?
Here are some possible questions you may ask yourself before making the final decision of divorcing your Addict Spouse:
- Have you acknowledged to yourself that your spouse is an addict?
- Have you acknowledged to your spouse that he/she is an addict?
- Has your life and that of your family become chaotic and unstable as a result of living with an addict?
- Have you gotten help for yourself and your spouse from an addiction expert?
- Have you attended counseling with your spouse and a knowledgeable addiction therapist?
- Have you or your family experienced serious negative consequences as a result of your spouse’s addiction?
- Have you considered or tried an intervention?
- Have you told your addict spouse that you are contemplating divorce unless he/she stops using?
- Are you now ready to leave the marriage and stop the pain?
You do not have to live in this current situation. Are you, as the non-addictive spouse, already the enabler in this relationship? Many times when the addictive spouse does seek professional help it is already too late for the marriage to survive.
If you have a family, addictive reality is very destructive to you and all family members involved. Most non-addictive family members feel very helpless in stopping the family unit from being destroyed or addressing the viability of the marriage.
(credit : National Institute on Chemical Dependency: http://nicd.inspirehealth.org/)
Contract Review: Proper Form to Prevent Future Breach
Before signing a contract, read through it carefully. Have an attorney review the contract. Make certain that you know what obligations are stated and/or implied. If you are uncertain as to your duties and you sign the contract, you may be liable for a future unintentional breach of the contract.
Contract negotiations, especially in the context of important financial contracts, can be taxing and difficult at best. An attorney can assist you with negotiations to ensure your needs and requirements are met. Additionally, your attorney can properly draft and/or review the contract, explain to you your rights and duties under the contract, and make suggestions as to provisions which may be necessary to protect your best interest.
The following is a good guideline for contract review. It is not an all-inclusive list, but may be used as a tool to assist with contract drafting and review:
- Make sure the language contained in the contract is clear and understandable. In most cases, limit the use of highly technical terms when possible. Unnecessary legal wording may make the contract confusing, thus use regular wording to make sure the parties understand what the contract says and means.
- Give a clear and concise description of the goods and/or services to be received.
- Give a clear description of the amount of money or other consideration for the contract.
- If any payments are payable outside the U.S., make sure the payments are in U.S. dollars.
- Make sure the contract contains a specific time and place for performance.
- The contract should contain a method of providing notice of default and opportunity to cure default.
- Rights, obligations, and duties of every party should be clearly listed. Each party’s responsibilities should be identified in understandable wording.
- Use clear and concise names when listing parties to the contract, including address, telephone number, fax number, and email addresses.
- Be sure you have a contact person for each party to the contract, including address, telephone number, fax number, and email addresses.
- Establish a date the contract is to begin and end.
- Make sure the contract contains all other important dates to the contract (milestones, deadlines, reports, etc.). Use full dates. Such dates should be clearly identified.
- The procedure for renewal of the contract should be clearly identified.
- If an employment contract, the procedure for termination of the contract should be clearly identified (termination for cause and/or termination at will).
- Indemnification, liquidated damages, attorney’s fees, waiver of contractor’s liability, waiver of statutes of limitation clauses should be incorporated if necessary or applicable.
- Establish the contract is governed by the laws of the State of Texas.
- Establish the venue for suit is in the county where the Company’s main office or parties signing are located or agree otherwise.
- If insurance is required, define the types and levels of coverage.
- Confidentiality provisions, if applicable, should be incorporated.
- Ensure Act of God or force majeure clauses are incorporated if necessary.
- Assignment by either party should be approved in advance in writing.
- Incorporate an Alternative Dispute Resolution clause, if required or desired.
- All appendices, exhibits, attachments, and schedules should be attached.
- Title and authority of person signing the contract should be properly stated and warranted.
- Spelling, formatting, grammar, punctuation and general appearance of the contract should be professional and accurate.
Preprinted form contracts should only be viewed as a starting point, not a final expression of the parties’ agreement. Protection for all parties is usually minimal to non-existent in such pre-printed forms. No pre-printed form can be expected to cover the particulars of all agreements between two or more specific parties. Having an attorney review and negotiate pre-printed forms may prove prudent and smart.
It is imperative that the terms of a contract are fairly negotiated, properly drafted, and reviewed to ensure the contract meets the intentions of the parties.
NACOL LAW FIRM P.C.
8144 Walnut Hill Lane
Suite 1190
Dallas, Texas 75231
972-690-3333
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Attorney Mark A. Nacol is board certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization