Verbs/Tenses — Activity

“The tenant has vacated the premises” and “the tenant vacated the premises” sound almost identical, but one confirms a completed situation relevant right now, and the other simply reports a past event with no bearing on the present. Getting tense wrong in legal drafting is not a style issue; it can change what a sentence is actually claiming.

In two minutes

A verb's tense places an action in time — past, present or future — and within each of those, the simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous forms express finer distinctions of completion and duration that matter directly to precise legal and professional writing.

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The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of English – I on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.