Downloading a legal form – if you’ve never done it – can be quite the learning experience. Not only do you see how easy it can be, but you start to get more knowledge about the same legal forms you were curious about. You get a deeper understanding of the legal process of contracts and signed documents.
But how do you know when you should download one? Well, there are a number of ways. The most important question you should ask yourself is, simply, “what are the legal consequences if I don’t use proper legal forms in this situation?” Even though there are probably thousands of different circumstances you can find yourself in, you might just be surprised to see that there is a legal form to cover you no matter what your worry. Here’s how to know when to download that legal form.
Contracts with Others
One of the most obvious times to download a legal form is when you enter into a lucrative contract with people you don’t know very well (not to mention people you do know very well!). Let’s say that you’re going to sell a used car and want to make sure that the sale is legally-binding. To do that, you can download a template car sale legal form. They’re often simple, easy to read, and only require that a few pieces of information be filled in about the car itself before you both sign the contract.
Contracts with others have the added benefit of using the government’s justice system to protect you against fraud – it’s a system you should take advantage of.
Protecting Property, Including Intellectual Property
In the above example, we talked about entering into a contract with someone else when you want an exchange to take place. But sometimes you want to protect against an exchange taking place, particularly when you’ve got valuable property that you don’t feel like selling – and you definitely don’t want to get stolen.
Whether you’re talking about tangible or intangible property (intangible property can include intellectual property like artwork or patents), it’s important that you have the right legal forms to back up your claims to this property. In some cases, you already have “legal forms” such as deeds. In other cases, you’ll have to download your own in order to assert that what you own is 100% yours and that it should be protected as your property under the justice system.
Making the Vague Clear
At other times, it’s important to use legal forms simply to make definitions, to make what was previously vague much more clear. A great way to do that is to download the right legal form to your situation. Affidavits are this type of legal form, though you’ll want to be sure you need to sign an affidavit before you do sign one. Sometimes, it pays to keep things clear and defined in legal terms, and there’s often no better way to do that than by downloading the proper legal forms you need.