legal, united-statesOne of our local clients plans to lease some office space in New York from a XYZ company that is incorporated in Delaware.
XYZ company has prepared an application form for the clients to fill and pay for the total money upfront for the lease period of 10 years.
Once the XYZ company’s bank recieves the money, they will sign the lease agreement.
My question is that how binding is the application form with the company’s name and their bank details on it for any client to pay the money upfront or what documents can be asked from the XYZ company to be assured that the transaction will be legally safe?
Best you raise this question in the law exchange, not in startups.
Get a lawyer to look at it.
If a lawyer is too expensive, then ask yourself if you can afford to kiss your money away. I’m aware of several such frauds based on my living in/around Europe.
Use your search engine and search their phone number, their company details.
I used to work for a large well known shipping company - they had a special division to deal with unusually large shipments (aircraft engines for example). A friend of mine worked his way to the top of the food chain in an Arab country managing this for the business. I had not seen him in years but heard he got arrested. He had the crafty idea of changing the bank details on the paperwork to his own bank account for a handful of forms. He did this randomly and irregularly over a period of years - his signature authorised shipments, so nobody complained until an audit.
Basically - fraud can be profitable and if you end up sending someone money they don’t deserve, and if your paperwork is wrong, it will be an uphill struggle for you to get it back. You might get it back, but its your head ache and your time, and your due diligence.
Best get a lawyer (especially to review the lease in case you are responsible for unusual the cost of repairs that happen once every few years).
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