Why You Shouldn't Use 12 p.m. As  A Contract Deadline

As a home buyer or seller, you will be faced with many decisions in the process, not the least of which would be deadlines in negotiations.  When you make an offer on a home or counter an offer on your home, you will need to give the other party a deadline; a time in which marks the end of the period of time that you will honor your counter offer.  Hopefully, you have a professional real estate agent guiding you (see STLBestAgent.com for some good ones) and one that will help you structure your offer, or counteroffer, in a manner that protects you and looks out for your best interest.  

Even though something like an acceptance deadline can sound rather innocuous, choosing the wrong time can cause you some grief, cost you a deal or perhaps jeopardize your ability to hold the other party to an agreement.  An example of this, is the use of "12 p.m." as a deadline.  Why is using 12 p.m. as a contract deadline a problem?  Well, to begin with, it is ambiguous, subject to interpretation and can cause confusion or dissenting opinions of the parties involved as to what was meant (opening the door for some of the aforementioned issues).  In addition, "12 p.m." actually doesn't exist and therefore can be argued to mean something different from what you are thinking.

How can 12 p.m. not exist?  

Well, to add a little fuel to the fire, 12 a.m. doesn't exist either.  How can this be?  To begin with, let's break it down and look at the elements of 12 p.m. Let's start with "p.m." which is an abbreviation for the Latin term post meridiem which means "after noon" or "after midday".  Now, let's break that down to "noon" or "midday".  When is noon or midday?  That is easy, right?  Yes, noon or midday would be at 12 during the day, the middle of the day, lunchtime basically.  Do you agree so far?  There doesn't appear to be many arguing against that.  So, if we agree that noon is at 12:00 then it would be safe to say that anytime after that would be "after noon" or post meridiem.  If 12 p.m. is supposed to be the same as 12:00, or "noon" how can it be post meridiem when it IS meridiem (noon)?  Now you see the problem, right?  How can it be noon and "after" noon?  It can't.  It would be like having a race between two runners where they tie and one finishes after the other.  If one is true (a tie) then the other can't be true (one finished after the other).  Therefore, if 12 p.m. is 12 noon, then 12 can't be "after" noon.  Yes, you can say we are splitting hairs here but, guess what people (and their attorneys) do when they want to break a contract or not be held to it?

How about 12 noon or 12 midnight?

Yes and no.  While 12 noon is more clear and subject to less argument, its counterpart, 12 midnight, opens up a new can of worms.  There's the catch with 12 midnight or even just "midnight".  If the contract says the deadline is "midnight of January 1" there are two different times, 24 hours apart, that could refer to.  Really? Yep!  December 31st at midnight is the point where the date changes to January 1, so is that the midnight of January 1 referred to?  Or, is it the midnight that will occur at the end of January 1?  Like the example above, you can say this is splitting hairs, but it happens.

What acceptance deadline times should be used then?

The answer is simple, use any time at all between 12:01 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. or between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 a.m.  That gives you 1,438 choices, none of which will be ambiguous or that should be subject to debate.