This friend lives in DC and was looking to buy a small condo (which takes a small fortune in that market). After reaching an agreement on price (what one might think to be the main sticking point in a negotiation), he ran into a roadblock with some of the terms of the purchase contract. The seller--a corporation that had built these new-construction units--insisted upon a term in which, should the buyer die before the closing date, the sale would be required to continue through the estate of the deceased buyer. In essence, the seller was going to force the sale upon the grieving family of a deceased son or brother or husband if death should happen before closing. The burden upon the corporation simply to put the unit back up for sale would be small. The emotional and financial burden upon the grieving family of the buyer would be enormous.
I cannot fathom the selfishness and greediness that would have prompted a party to put this clause into a contract in the first place. I have even less understanding why a party would continue to insist upon enforcement of such a clause if the unfortunate death were to occur. In my friend's case, it would have saddled his widowed mother with the emotional and financial burden of traveling to DC from Arkansas and, in addition to handling whatever probate issues he might have had, find some way to continue with this significant purchase (certainly in Arkansas or Tulsa property terms) and/or try to work out some kind of a sale.
No doubt many people enter into such agreements because they feel it is the only way to obtain that which they seek--a house, a loan, a business proposition--and many don't consider the effect of such clauses, which is what the corporation counts on. Luckily for my friend in the above-scenario, he, being an attorney and well-versed in our profession to imagine the worst possible scenario happening, walked away from the deal. He didn't have to have the condo, though he would have liked to own it.
In many others' cases, though, the option of walking away may not be there, nor do they have the bargaining power to negotiate a clause out of the agreement because of the financial disparity of power. One would think that such a time might be the perfect opportunity to be more fair; I think most see it, however, as simply one more business opportunity.
It is one thing to negotiate fairly and even-handedly to a deal's resolution, and to hold a party to that deal. It is quite another to negotiate a deal to take advantage of another's weakened position simply for financial gain, or, alternatively, to hold a party to an unfair position when one has no need for the term for which one has bargained and it is clearly a term that is a hardship on the other party.
And it remains my opinion that exercising such greed is harmful not only to the unfortunate party to the deal. In the condo scenario, it would have financially ruined possibly three families--my friend's estate, his mother, and his sister--and that financial burden would have trickled into other financial obligations, and so forth. In other circumstances, exercising continued greed can mean the difference between an employee bonus in a small corporation and barely staying afloat. It doesn't just affect you.
