For the avoidance of doubt

Revision as of 15:02, 14 October 2016 by Amwelladmin (talk | contribs)

A solicitor — one who is licensed in the practice of semantic precision, after all — can scarcely indicate unconditional surrender to the demands of the English language more clearly than by using this abominable phrase.

“You had one job”, so the saying goes, and as an officer of Her Majesty’s courts, that job was to craft your prose in a way that didn’t contain doubt in the first place. For what is the point of a contract if not to clear up the confusion so readily left by the primordial grunts, nods and inarticulate mumblings of merchants as they interact with each other?

This is how it usually plays[1]:

The Chargor assigns and agrees to assign absolutely, subject to the proviso for re-assignment on redemption, all of its rights in respect of the Assigned Receivables, together with the benefit of any security granted to the Chargor thereof (and together in all cases, for the avoidance of doubt, with the proceeds thereof).


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  1. This is, honest to God, a real-life example