Spot an explanation that is smoother or more generous than the actual wording.
When an assistant explains a contract clause for you, treat its summary as a draft and check every point against the quoted sentence it came from. Look hardest at conditions, numbers, exceptions and the words that say whether something must happen or only might.
Assistants do a good job of turning hard text into easy text. Easy text tends to be shorter than the original, and a shorter version has left something out along the way. A language model has taken in thousands of tenancy agreements, insurance policies and loan terms. Asked to summarise one particular clause, it leans towards the form of that clause it has met most often. If your contract uses the common wording, the lean works in your favour. If your wording is stricter, narrower or simply different, the summary can slip back to the familiar form, and the text gives you no hint that it has.
This is drift towards the usual version. The result can be a fair description of clauses like yours in general and an incorrect description of yours, written in the same confident tone a correct one would have. Lesson 3.1, "Get an explanation that quotes the clause back", had you ask for the source sentence beside each point, and those quotes are the material you check the summary against.
Wei Jie, the tenant from lesson 3.2, "The clauses worth asking about first", copied the early termination clause from the lease into an assistant and asked what it meant in plain words. The reply was a single sentence saying the lease could be ended early with two months' notice if Wei Jie's employer moved Wei Jie out of Singapore, and Wei Jie was relieved to read it.
The clause itself, written for this example and not taken from a standard form, said more than that. It allowed the tenant to terminate only once twelve months of the term had expired, and only if the tenant's employer had transferred the tenant out of Singapore. Notice had to be at least two months, in writing, with documentary proof of the transfer. On top of that, the tenant had to reimburse the landlord a proportionate part of the commission paid to the agent.
Three gaps in that one-sentence answer would each have cost Wei Jie money. The twelve-month minimum was missing, and since Wei Jie was at month eleven, that condition decided everything. The requirement for written notice with documentary proof was missing, and so was the commission repayment. Two months' notice survived, and of all the details in the clause it was the one least likely to cause harm.
Wei Jie sent an email to the landlord's agent quoting the clause. The agent wrote back confirming that the twelve-month period applied and that the commission refund would be pro-rated, which gave Wei Jie a month to plan for both instead of finding out on the day.
Lay the explanation from lesson 3.1 in front of you. Take one point at a time, put your hand over the summary, and read just the quoted sentence. Then put four questions to it:
Does it contain a condition, such as "provided that" or "if", that the summary has left out? Does it contain a number, such as a period, amount, percentage or age, and has the summary kept that number exactly? Does it contain an exception, such as "except", "unless" or "other than", that changes who or what is covered? Does it say "shall" or "will" where the summary says "can", or the reverse?
Wherever the summary dropped or altered something, mark it, then write beside it what the clause actually says, in your own words. Run against Wei Jie's summary, these checks find three failures out of four: the missing twelve-month condition, the missing written notice with proof, and the missing commission repayment.
A large share of what summaries lose sits in a few short words. May hands someone a choice, and that someone is often the insurer or the landlord rather than you. Subject to tells you another clause can override this one. "Unless" and "except" cut certain cases out. "Provided that" attaches a condition. "At the discretion of" means nothing has been promised at all.
If the policy says "the Company may pay" and the summary says "the plan pays", a possibility has been rewritten as a promise. If the summary leaves out "subject to clause 9", a limit has disappeared that you had no way of knowing about. Whenever one of these words turns up in the quoted sentence, follow where it leads. For "subject to clause 9", go and read clause 9, and paste it into the assistant as well if you need it explained.
Some clauses stay unclear even after a careful comparison, because the wording can be read two ways, because it rests on a definition that is itself unclear, or because it points to a schedule you were never given. Do not hand the decision to the assistant at that point. It has no way of knowing the answer, so it can only guess, and its guess will lean towards the common version again.
Put the question to the other party: the insurer, the bank, the landlord or the landlord's agent. Do it in writing, by email or through the provider's secure message channel, and include the clause number in your question, the way Wei Jie did. A written reply leaves you with a record of what they said, and if the reply is vague, that vagueness tells you something about the clause as well.
Now go back to the explanation you got in lesson 3.1 and put it beside the clause it came from.
Put your explanation from lesson 3.1 next to the clause, go through it line by line, and mark anything the summary dropped or changed.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).