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One of the things that's really important
to make sure that you both keep an agreement
is that you haven't agreed to anything
that you didn't intend to follow through with.
So in making an agreement,
it's important that you can honour your agreement,
that you can commit to the agreement,
that, in fact, you haven't agreed to something
you never intended to do.
Agreements are something
that people should come up with themselves.
If we come up with it
and it's something that works for the two of us,
then it's in our best interest
to make sure that it goes ahead.
It's in our best interest to make sure that it works.
How do we make sure that we both stick to it?
That's something we can think about
when we're actually writing the agreement
or when we're coming up with a resolution.
So put a time frame in there.
"We'd like it done by X."
You know, by a week or two weeks time.
And if we're both happy with that, great,
and if it doesn't happen within that time period,
what are we going to do?
How are we going to deal with that?
Am I going to approach you
or you're going to let me know,
"Look, there's been an issue with the bank,"
if you're borrowing some money to get it done.
Or there's been an issue with the contractor -
he can't come down because he's booked in too many jobs.
So just letting people know.
Sometimes it's not about,
"I don't want to go ahead with the agreement,"
or, "I've changed my mind."
Sometimes there are external things that impact on
our ability to go forward with the agreement.
So just being aware that, you know, it's quite often
not a deliberate choice to do the wrong thing.
Quite often it can be other things
impacting on people's ability to go forward.
Keeping in touch with our neighbour on a regular basis
so if we've given ourselves a fortnight
to get a contract out
to cut the branches down,
talk to your neighbour after a week
and find out is the contractor still able
to turn up on that particular weekend.
Or ask your neighbour
if it's OK for you to contact the contractor
to see if he's still onboard to come along.
So the elements of communication
are very, very important.
Once you've reached an agreement
and resolved the issue,
for that agreement to stick
you'll really need to wrap some things around it.
So it will be around, you know,
who, when, why, how,
what's going to happen if it doesn't work,
so, you know, who's going to organise the contractor,
who's going to be home on that particular day,
what's the time frame,
if it, you know, lags on beyond that time frame
what's going to happen.
So it's all of those details
that need to be agreed on as part of the agreement.
If the agreement doesn't work,
if something goes wrong or someone pulls out,
what happens next?
The agreement that you reach
is only going to be as good as people sticking to it
and following all of the things that you've agreed to.
There may be a whole range of reasons
why your neighbour hasn't stuck to the agreement,
because things happen in people's lives.
For example, they may have agreed
to pay a certain amount of money
but they could've lost their job
or...I don't know,
a whole range of things could've happened.
So I suppose the first thing to do would be
to find out, you know, what's gone on for them.
Was the agreement OK with them?
Maybe they felt pushed into the agreement
for some reason.
So just touch base with them
and say, "Hey, do we want to rewrite this agreement?
"Has the situation changed
"since we sat down and wrote the agreement?"