Lease Option Memo: Fill & Download for Free

I once rented a nice little hobby farm of 10 acres from a couple of brothers that owned a waste disposal company. Unknown to us at the time we signed the two year lease, they had been negotiating with a media company to buy the place and put a 300′ radio antenna on the back five acres. They thought the deal fell through so they rented to us.About three months into our lease, we were suddenly informed by the new owner they had bought the property, and our rent would be increased 75%, we’d lose access to all but the land surrounding the house, and could no longer use the barn, or large metal building I used for parking and as a shop. I explained to them we had a two year lease, with an option to do a contract-for-deed at the end of the first year if we decided we liked the property. The lease included all the land, and all buildings. The new owner said we had no such lease and were just paying month to month. I was told, point blank by the new owner that I was lying. He said the title ensurer had found we had no claim to the property in any way.I asked the previous owners to provide a copy of the lease and was told it was “lost” in a mysterious office fire that happened to occur just after the business was to be audited. We had some file boxes stored in the basement that were ruined when it flooded and I thought our copy had been in one of them and thrown away. We were screwed, but decided to go to court anyway because our deposit check had indicated it was for “24 month lease” at the address in the memo field. I thought that might help. Meanwhile, the new owners had already started building the antenna behind the house, and torn down an awesome 110 year-old barn to make room for the guide wires.We retained an attorney and shortly after, received an eviction notice. Our attorney said we had little in our favor but I was hoping the new owners would at least offer to pay for our move since we had proof we’d paid a deposit. We got a hearing set, but the new owners changed the date at the last minute. I wasn’t holding out on being able to stay, and had started packing some items. As I was emptying the kitchen “junk” drawer, I found our copy of the lease at the bottom of the drawer. It was the drawer closest to the breakfast nook, where we had sat with the previous owner and signed the lease. Apparently, it got stuck face down in the drawer and I never thought of it again!Long story short, it turns out the title ensurer lied about checking with us to see if we had any claim as renters. The previous owners lied to the new owner about us having a lease, and lied to us about selling the property, and the new owner lied to us about not having to honor any lease! The judge awarded us moving expenses, and attorney fees, plus the remaining amount of the rent we would have been charged for the rest of the year. They had 30 days to pay, and they didn’t. We took them back to court, got the same judge and he was furious! He then gave them 72 hours to pay us, plus our court costs and attorney fees, plus the amount of rent for the second year of the lease! The check arrived by FedEx in 69 hours, pushing it close to their deadline.After we moved, I got a bill in the mail for $4,525 for “property repairs, mowing and garbage removal” with a note saying we had “72 hours to pay or we’d be taken to court.” The previous owners had included garbage pick-up in the rent and a riding mower for lawn care. They took both back the day after they sold the property, so I let the grass grow, and dumped our garbage in an enclosed metal silo in the back… for four months while they took us to court! The farmhouse was 110 years old and didn’t suffer from our abuse, I assure you. I wrote back and my attorney hand delivered it at no charge, just to see the look on the new owner’s face! In it I said I’d contact the judge and ask his opinion on the matter. I never heard back from them again.Moral of the story is, always, always keep your paperwork!

No, the McCollum memo didn’t provoke Japan to attack the United States nor was it taken as a nefarious blueprint by the machiavellian Franklin Delano Roosevelt to drag the United States into war.The McCollum memo is akin to the age old philosophical question: if a tree falls in the forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Does a memo written by a low level intelligence analyst proposing a mundane list of policy prescriptions for limiting Japanese agression that was read only by his immediate supervisor have any historical relevance?The McCollum memo is used as a prop by Pearl Harbor conspiracy theorists - notably Robert Stinnet who seized on it as the smoking gun for his rehash of stale Pearl Harbor conspiracy fantasies - and portray it as a roadmap for provoking Japan into attacking the US.Those claims are just Affirming the consequent - Wikipedia: Japan did attack the US because of US sanctions, but the McCollum memo didn't have anything to do with making US policy.The memo was written on October 7, 1940; keep that date in mind, timing is everything in history.Let's take a look at what McCollum proposed:A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly SingaporeB. Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East IndiesC. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-ShekD. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or SingaporeE. Send two divisions of submarines to the OrientF. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian IslandsG. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oilH. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British EmpireMake an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore and Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies - These recommendations are hardly an act of prescience; the US and Britain had worked a deal trading obsolete US destroyers for air and naval bases in British possessions in the Caribbean and Canada more than a month before McCollum wrote his memo. It didn't take a lot of foresight to see that similar possibilities existed in the Far East where British bases like Hong Kong and Singapore or Dutch bases in the Malay Archipelago could extend the reach of the US Navy.Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore and Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient - Another commonsense move if you are looking to project a creditable military deterrent.Any Japanese offensive move would run straight into the US Asiatic Fleet first. The Asiatic Fleet was the red headed stepchild of the US Navy. It had only one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, thirteen destroyers and 29 submarines, nowhere near enough firepower to be a deterrent or to resist the Imperial Japanese Navy if they steamed south.Admiral Thomas Harte, commander of the Asiatic Fleet, requested his fleet be reinforced with submarines in November 1940 but this is unsurprising: he was fully aware of the weakness of his command, nor is there any evidence that he received or read the McCollum memo.Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek - The US was giving aid and comfort to Nationalist China since 1937 but FDR's options were limited in October 1940. Lend-Lease (passed in March 1941) and the rollback of strict neutrality through 1940 and 1941 helped in getting military aid to Nationalist China but the biggest bottleneck was there was no convenient supply line to China, and there wouldn't one be until 1945. FDR and many others were committed to helping China and had been since 1937 and before.Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands - FDR first proposed basing the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in a secret memo on June 30, 1940 so it is not like McCollum came up with the idea. It is another common sense move if you want to project a creditable military deterrent and contain Japan.It does not take much diplomatic savvy to see that once the US Pacific Fleet was at Pearl Harbor, returning it to the West Coast while tensions with Japan ran high would be seen as either a humiliating diplomatic climb-down or as giving a green light to Japanese expansionism in the Pacific.Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil and Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire - The US was already trying to pull economic levers against Japan before McCollum wrote his memo:1939 - US abrogates the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with JapanJuly 2, 1940 - Export Control Act becomes law allowing the President to impose economic embargoesJuly 31, 1940 - US embargoes export of aviation gas and lubricants, iron and steel to JapanOctober 16, 1940 - US embargoes export of scrap steel to JapanUS embargoes were the cause of Japan attacking - specifically the total oil embargo declared in June 1941 - but the people behind those policies, like Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau and FDR himself, never read McCollum's memo. McCollum and his memo had nothing to do with the passage of the Export Control Act, FDR's desire to escape the confines of strict neutrality and deter Japan from widening the war into the Pacific.Bottom line: nobody other than McCollum's boss read the memo and it was filed away like so many government memos until a conspiracy theorist dug it up and used it to prop up a recycling of tired and discredited canards.One last thing: your history teacher is a crap historian or a closet conspiracy theorist.

There are lots of good answers that make it clear this doesn’t relieve you of the obligation to pay all your rent, and that some charges can be made and you don’t get to decide how to apply partial payment of what you owe.I want to just point out that the memo field on a check in general does not give you legal rights that you don’t otherwise have nor do they establish a new or altered contract between you and the landlord.What it does do is clarify your intentions and it is evidence of those intentions. That may matter in a later legal proceeding but it does not change anything that the lease or rental agreement established. However if your lease gives you specific rights or options the memo field may be relevant to determining whether you are exercising those options.I might add that as a landlord I had a property manager operating two different rentals for me as I lived in another state. We got into a disagreement when they wanted to charge me $3000+ for repainting a room, when I had explicitly refused to approve that work. The agent then applied rent payments from both units to that work. The agreements I signed and state law explicitly made that unlawful; he might have a right to apply the rental income from the affected unit but none to use the revenue from a different property. The contract governs. Eventually I recouped all the rent and fired the property manager.