December 10, 2010

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comment on monitoring contract

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Ken

    We were asked to operate a company after the owner suffered a stroke and was deemed incapacitated.  Our instructions from the Probate Court were to sell the company as quickly as possible.  The owner had operated the company for over thirty years without any monitoring agreements.  We needed monitoring agreements that we could quickly circulate to the 400 plus customers so that we could sell the RMR.

     We used Ken’s monitoring agreement and within a month had turned a substantially worthless company into a $400,000 asset.  The agreements met our insurance carrier’s requirements and we were able to begin negotiating a sale.

      We have participated in numerous transactions and have copies of contracts from hundreds of alarm companies, but we know what we don’t know and we don’t know the intricacies of contract law.  By relying on Ken’s expertise and knowledge we turned a liability into financial security for a grieving family.

Mitch Reitman

S.I.C. Consulting, Inc.

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Response:

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    Always nice to hear something positive.  That owner who operated for 30 years could have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble by using contracts all along.  Lucky for the survivors that he also didn't leave a lawsuit behind without any contract protection.

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remote video monitoring contract

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Question:

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Hi Ken,

    I have subscribed to your daily “newsletter” for quite some time and find it to be very informative.  Thanks for providing this forum.

    We are about to start selling a residential video system from AlarmNet as part of their Total Connect remote services offering.  The video is not monitored by AlarmNet, Koorsen, or our central station.  It might be sold along with a monitored alarm system but it might also be sold as a stand alone video system. As you may know, Wireless IP video cameras are linked though the customer’s router to an AlarmNet server to allow the homeowner to view streaming video via an AlarmNet website using a PC or mobile browser.  The cameras can also be programmed to send video clips to AlarmNet upon motion activation or upon a schedule and AlarmNet will store a limited amount of video for subscriber retrieval.

    If we sell this service along with a monitored alarm and use our current monitoring agreement, I thought I would have our attorney draft a video rider.  But since sometimes this will be sold without monitoring, I guess we will need a stand-alone video agreement.  Is your “ REMOTE VIDEO MONITORING SERVICE” contract suitable for this application?

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Answer:

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    Yes, that is what the Remote Video Monitoring Contract was intended and designed for. 

Thanks,

Rob Driscoll