8.9.24 – SSI – Ken Kirschenbaum
Changing any provision of the Standard Form Agreement will reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the contract.
There may be good reason to walk away from a job, but a request to modify your Standard Form Agreement is not one of them — unless you have a “mass market” approach and don’t want to spend any time with a customer who wants to negotiate your “free install and $16 a month monitoring deal.”
If you don’t use a K&K contract, then don’t bother calling me to discuss that contract or changes to it. I don’t know what your contract states, and you don’t want to have me spend at least an hour trying to figure it out.
Standard Form Agreements
K&K supports K&K Standard Form Agreements for a few reasons:
- K&K Standard Form Agreements are known to us. We wrote them.
- We enforce thousands of K&K agreements in arbitrations and litigation yearly.
- We negotiate K&K agreements daily, assisting our clients to get their contract signed.
- It’s simply not cost effective for K&K (or you) for K&K to work with your contract, and we prefer not to. That’s a choice we can easily make because half the alarm companies in the U.S. use K&K contracts. You don’t, or you don’t keep them updated? That’s a mistake, but it’s one you can correct today by ordering new K&K contracts.
I do believe that every paragraph, every sentence and every word in the Standard Form Agreements is important. Changing any provision will reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the agreement. Nevertheless, many of the provisions are business in nature, which is always your decision, and you can be flexible.
Other provisions — and you should be able to distinguish them — are legal in nature, and they’re there for reasons you may understand or may not fully appreciate. Changing the legal provisions can seriously reduce the effectiveness of the agreement and seriously compromise the value of that account.
An account base with too many accounts with changed contracts may scare away potential buyers of your accounts, may cause a central station to refuse to monitor those accounts or all of your accounts, and may cause an E&O carrier to refuse to write your coverage, non-renew your coverage or dump you as an insured. And why not? You’re too much of a risk-taker, and they don’t want that exposure.
The Concierge Program
The Concierge Program is designed to assist alarm companies in many ways, and contract negotiations are one of the most used benefits of the program. You get a free half-hour each month for contract review and negotiations. That’s typically all the time it takes for me to review and, when necessary, negotiate contract changes. There’s still room for you to join the Concierge Program, so join today.
We are soon approaching a “waiting list” to join. Contact K&K concierge coordinator Stacy Spector, Esq., at 516-747-6700 x304 or sspector@kirschenbaumesq.com.
There are at least five protective provisions in the Standard Form Agreements, and modifying or even striking one or two is possible without completely decimating the contract’s protective features. But it’s not the kind of change in the contract you should try to make on your own.
The only time there is no reason to seek counsel when your contract is challenged is when both of the following are true:
- The customer has made it clear that it’s take it or leave it.
- You want the job and will agree to anything to get it.
Contract Situations Arise
Yes, those situations arise all the time, and dealers have different levels of tolerance for risk. (It’s probably different levels of greed mixed with either a sense of adventure or stupidity.) It’s not a lawyer’s job to make these decisions for you, but it is a lawyer’s job to point out the risks and possibilities so you can make the most informed decision you are able to.
Unless your attorney writes your contract and negotiates it every day of the week, I suggest you consider joining the Concierge Program or at least having my phone number on speed dial.