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Standard contracts are non-negotiable agreements offered by larger parties, with examples including home security, sporting events, rentals, and insurance policies. They can be disadvantageous for consumers who rarely read them, and some parts can be voided. Negotiations are often not permitted, but some contracts allow for specific input or negotiation.
A standard contract, sometimes called a membership contract or a take-it-or-leave-it contract, is one usually entered into by parties of differing size or strength, with the terms dictated by the larger party and portrayed as non-negotiable. Some examples of standard contracts are monitoring your home security system, attending a professional sporting event, residential rental of an apartment, or a life insurance policy. In each of these cases, the seller offers a product or service, the acceptance of which is subject to acceptance of certain terms and conditions as they are, without negotiation. If the buyer expresses a desire to make changes to the contract, the seller will simply refuse and find another buyer. Indeed, in the case of a professional sporting event, the contract is printed on the back of the ticket and the purchase of the ticket implies acceptance of the contract.
While there are some advantages to standard contracts, especially for those offering them, there are a number of disadvantages. For example, even though we are told to read the entire agreement that we enter into, we rarely read agreements that cover things like computer software, also called shrink contracts because in most cases we cannot log in and read the entire agreement until until we have purchased and paid for the product. Contracts like this are of dubious enforceability. Indeed, in many cases, consumers offered a standard contract are discouraged from reading it, especially in a busy sales environment such as an airport car rental desk.
For one party to insist on an unalterable set of terms and conditions can be seen as bullying and, in some cases, a standard contract or parts of it can be voided. One famous case involved a consumer who had purchased a bundle of furniture under a time-limited payment plan, whose terms and conditions, set out in a standard contract, stipulated that the furniture was a single item. When the consumer defaults with only a small unpaid balance, the furniture store has attempted to repossess the entire furniture suite. The consumer sued, and the court ruled that repurposing the entire suite, when it was pending less than the cost of the smaller item, was unreasonable and only allowed the store to repossess a small table.
Or, of course, there are cases where altering a standard contract would inconvenience the seller. It is impractical for the promoters of a professional sporting event to renegotiate the terms of the contract with the opponent, for example, and then simply refund the ticket purchase price (if the event has not started yet). Residential leases are similar: the owner of an apartment complex, for example, would do wrong to negotiate different terms and conditions for each tenant.
Most consumer contracts, however, are standard contracts and contracts where negotiations are permitted, are permitted by the seller only in certain areas. For example, standard contract forms for listing and selling real estate contain many standard, or standard, clauses, but they also contain some clauses that invite or require specific input or negotiation from the parties. The most common consumer contracts in the United States, including cell phone service and credit card arrangements, computer software, and insurance contracts, are all absolutely non-negotiable standard contracts.
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