A few suggestions regarding counter offers. Always put counter offers in writing. People forget terms, and deals can get complex so you need a written record. You want to carefully document where both parties agree and disagree. Have the party making the counter offer sign it and provied a place for it to be accepted. This will help avoid the shifing sands problem. Avoid rewriting the agreement in order to consolidate the orginal offer and any counter offers. Some like to simplify the documents by consolidating them into one document. All this does is open up the possibility for more negotiations if the final document does not exactly reproduce the meeting of the minds. There exists a meeting of the minds already with the offer and counter offers, so why try and make things more complex? The offer and the counters are the deal.
A few suggestions regarding counter offers. Always put counter offers in writing. People forget terms, and deals can get complex so you need a written record. You want to carefully document where both parties agree and disagree. Have the party making the counter offer sign it and provied a place for it to be accepted. This will help avoid the shifing sands problem. Avoid rewriting the agreement in order to consolidate the orginal offer and any counter offers. Some like to simplify the documents by consolidating them into one document. All this does is open up the possibility for more negotiations if the final document does not exactly reproduce the meeting of the minds. There exists a meeting of the minds already with the offer and counter offers, so why try and make things more complex? The offer and the counters are the deal.