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ohwilleke
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jvriesem
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Why would a landlord put the following in a residential rental agreement?

I saw the following in a rental agreement:

Legal Proceedings: Landlord and Tenant agree that any action or proceeding arising out of or in any way connected with this agreement, regardless of whether such claim is based on contract, tort or other legal theory, shall be heard by a court sitting without a jury and thus Tenant hereby waives all rights to a trial by jury.

This was written by a property management company. My guess is that they want:

  1. To avoid a jury that might be personally prejudiced against landlords or property management companies.
  2. An economic advantage in court. The Landlord presumably can afford better lawyers than the Tenant, so they want the Tenant to have no advantage.
  3. The jury might find the rental agreement confusing, so they might misunderstand the problem, whereas a judge would be better able to decide because of their legal background.

Is this a good intuition? Are there other reasons they would put that clause in a residential rental agreement?