Lease abstraction is the extraction and summarization of relevant information from leases in a systematic and uniform manner. This facilitates efficient data management. Multilingual lease abstraction is the abstraction of foreign language lease documents, creating a summary in a language different from the source document.
Leases that run into several pages, (sometimes hundreds of them) pose a challenge in keeping track of important and pressing information. Legal translation services costs are high, and wasteful, for the sheer verbosity of legalese. Significant information can be separated, summarized and organized in a systematic structure, known as an abstract. An abstract template is a standardized format of recording lease information. This uniformity in recording data makes it easy to keep track of important dates, data-fields and clauses.
The need for abstraction arises from the need for data management. Leases are important legal documents. Their clauses, payment and renewal dates are time-bound. Certain clauses have far-reaching legal implications. Besides, companies have several properties and real estate units to manage. Moreover, changes, relocations and renewals are taking place all the time. Keeping track of all the nitty-gritties and at the same time, keeping track of important dates can be daunting.
Maintaining data in a summarized and uniform manner is essential for legal and statutory compliance.This is a more efficient alternative to legal translation.
A corporation may have several locations across the globe, renting multiple offices. A real-estate conglomerate may have thousands of units rented out. In either case, maintaining a homogenized, dynamic and efficient database is not only essential, but critical.
The challenge for real estate companies and tenants in lease management arises especially when their locations are in various parts of the world. Leases will be in various languages. It may not be a viable option to hire legal associates in all languages to fulfill the task of abstraction in each language. Moreover, the processing team may speak only English. It is then that the importance of multilingual lease abstraction arises. The need arises to hire a language service company to perform this task.
A translation agency that provides legal translation and lease abstractions can come to the rescue.
Figure 1: Multilingual Lease Abstraction
Homogeneity, uniformity, and consistency are the mantra for data abstraction in general, and lease abstraction specifically.
The need for abstraction arises out the need for efficient data management. In order for this objective to be met, we need to check whether the following criteria are fulfilled. Firstly, we must standardize a structure in which data is entered. When we do this across various property types, clients and locations, we ensure there is uniformity in the process. Next, when we make the input-formats of data-fields consistent, we are able to exploit automated searches and filters.
For example, while entering date-formats, we must ensure that the input method is consistent across all locations. Some countries enter MM-DD-YY whereas others prefer date-month and year. Further, the choice of keyboard needs to be consistent. Similar examples are the entry of amounts and figures, which currency, which decimal type, how many decimal points, and so on. The attention to details in the process of abstraction is essential to ensure fulfilling the purpose of abstraction.
Multilingual lease abstraction is ideally an outsourced legal process. The outsourcing of lease abstraction involves identifying a competent agency, and the alignment of the agency’s process with that of the client.
On the side of the agency, a process is divided into two large parts – the legal and the linguistic. A skilled legal team will study the design of the client’s lease abstract. It will clarify terminology and ensure correct understanding. Further, conventions and formats for recording data are agreed upon. Errors are identified and suggestions are made.
It is essential that this is done ahead of the actual abstraction. Once the template is released for abstraction, any potential errors will get duplicated in the initial abstracts. Hence a thorough testing and debugging ahead of the actual process is advisable.
A process document with detailed guidelines is then prepared by the agency and validated by the client. If required, a pilot and hand-holding exercise is undertaken. At this stage, the agency’s team learns the process of the client. Once a template is frozen, and the guidelines are finalized, the same is transmitted to the team of linguists who then begin their first pilot batch.
Outsourcing is important for various reasons. Firstly, a client’s quantum of work may not be significant enough to warrant in-housing of the process. Next, the client may not have the necessary bandwidth and expertise to undertake the process. Finally, if the language of leases may be different from the day-to-day language of the organization. The need for outsourcing becomes evident.
Lease abstraction summarizes key lease details like dates, payments, and clauses into a standardized format for efficient management. Multilingual abstraction translates foreign language leases into a common language, ensuring consistency.
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Vikram Malhotra is the Founder and CEO of Wordpar International.
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