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I though U.S. citizens were supposed to all know the English language.

Noah Webster himself would have trouble with the fine print in most consumer contracts today.

Not only are legal "gotchas" written in very obtuse and barely understandable legalese, they are written in barely visible fonts and are often written in all capital letters to make reading more difficult.

In transactions between businesses themselves, the contracts are written in normal fonts with wide spacing with plenty of room to make cross-outs, notes, and changes to the terms.

We, the customers, gets this:

>>Noah Webster himself would have trouble with the fine print in most consumer contracts today.<<

Also, some real estate agents do lie about the terms of the loan. For example, they get paid by the lender to get the buyer to sign a contract with an ARM and pre-payment penalty, and they lie about the pre-payment penalty. The buyer moves out of his current residence, and then finds out at the signing that there is a very high pre-payment penalty. The buyer can either sign the papers or spend thousands in moving and storage costs, plus deposits on a temporary residence or rents a hotel room, so the buyer signs and hopes for the best. After 3 years, surprise surprise, home interest rates have gone up, and the buyer could not refinance earlier because of the prepayment penalty.

Ironically, some lenders who thought they would get rich after the rates went up on the ARMs, are going bankrupt because of the defaults. I wonder if this is going to cost taxpayers like the Savings & Loan disaster.

In this article, the buyer is suing the real estate agent for misrepresentation, but I don’t see how they will prove that the agent misrepresented the facts unless there are documents to that effect. More likely, if the agent did misrepresent, he did so verbally and there will be no proof.

We, the customers, gets this:

If you don't understand it, DON'T sign it. It's that easy. If you cannot read it, DON'T sign it.

You are putting at least two years of your salary into that contract. Do NOT sign anything unless you fully understand it.

I infuriated my RE agent and the title companies representative at my closing because I READ every page and asked questions if necessary.

F#$% em ... I got my house and everything I wanted from the deal.