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Original post by Obscure The benefit of the contract is that it can prevent problems in the first place. If you act from the start in a professional way then everyone will assume that you will do so throughout the relationship so they are less likely to cause problems.

But a typical contract is not worded to make things clear to either party, it's worded for lawyers to understand.

I reckon if you're not prepared to "get legal" on the other person if things go bad, you don't want a normal contract - you just want to write things in real English to make sure you both understand each other, and have some written record of the arrangement.

Are there examples of such "common sense" or "real english" agreements, which make it clear what is agreed and can be signed by both parties? I have seen some real software come with a license agreement which tries to follow such principles (can't think of any examples) so it's not unprecedented.

My main desire for contracts is simply for my paperwork, when sorting out accounts, tax, etc, to make it clear what payments are for.