# Lease valid after sale?



## Lucas (May 13, 2017)

My wife and I purchased our first home this past month. A farm house with 12 acres, previously the back 9 were farmed by a local very large farm company and we were told when we bought the house that they had a 3 year lease and were two years into it. I have not received anything from the company and they have not returned my calls or emails. Am I to assume they are not going to farm it? Does the purchase and transfer of the deed cancel the lease as it is with the previous owners not with us? 

Any insight would be helpful thank you!


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## hunter63 (Jan 4, 2005)

Call your lawyer......
Many people have purchased "Land Bank" land....and it stays in till the agreement runs it course.
Same with easements.......


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## krackin (Nov 2, 2014)

What does the lease say? If mentioned situation isn't referenced in the lease go talk to the farm. Don't go to lawyers until you discuss mutual satisfaction.


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## Lucas (May 13, 2017)

I have tried to contact farmer and have gotten no reply. Multiple emails and calling. I was not given any sort of physical lease I have no idea if any exists. I'm trying to figure out if I need to find someone else to do it or not.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

When you closed you should have been given a copy of any leases by the seller, their agent or the title company. You can't recognize something you don't have. You should go back thru the selling chain to whomever has first hand knowledge of the deal.
FWIW, I doubt 9 acres would hold much consequence to a large farming operation. If you can't physically go to the farmer's home or their office and speak to someone in the know, you could try sending a letter certificate of mailing.


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## Wolf mom (Mar 8, 2005)

http://landstewardshipproject.org/farmtransitionssustainablelongtermleasesfaqs
The above gives a good review of land leases. 

I do agree with GTX63, you should have gotten a copy of the lease! I'd add before you closed.... Actually, the contract should have been written "upon written acceptance of lease..." Go to your realtor's broker. He knows what a mess this turn into. Your realtor was not knowledgeable. If you didnt use one - now you know why you should have.

I would say because you have tried to contact the leaseholder many times, that you in actually, do not have a lease. Easy to find out - are you getting payments?? What was writtenin the contract about the lease and payments??

Try one last time by letter - list every time and date you have tried to contact them with no reply. Advise them that, due to no contact, you consider it a breach of contract and will terminate said lease on (put in a specific date) usually two weeks. Send the letter signed return receipt requested. That will fix that.


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## Lucas (May 13, 2017)

Wolf mom said:


> http://landstewardshipproject.org/farmtransitionssustainablelongtermleasesfaqs
> The above gives a good review of land leases.
> 
> I do agree with GTX63, you should have gotten a copy of the lease! I'd add before you closed.... Actually, the contract should have been written "upon written acceptance of lease..." Go to your realtor's broker. He knows what a mess this turn into. Your realtor was not knowledgeable. If you didnt use one - now you know why you should have.
> ...


I have not received any payments and the contract for sale said nothing about any lease it has only been one time that I heard from sellers about it at closing but no lease was produced. 

On a side note I have heard from other local farmers that this particular company is in trouble and losing land because they are not paying their leases. So one thought I had is they are avoiding me. 

I will most likely try to contact other farmers to see about them farming the land. I don't want it to just sit there and overgrow while I wait all year for the other place.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Still need to contact them, you do something with someone else and they could come back saying you broke the lease and get damages. Send the letter as Wolf Mom suggested, something to fall back on. Talk to other farmers, get an idea of what the lease should pay, any/all contacts with neighbors is a good thing, may get valuable information....James


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

The best thing to do is allow them to finish out the crop year and then negotiate whether or not you want to continue leasing to them.


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## chaossmurf (Jan 6, 2017)

well whats growing there ???
is it something youd enjoy eating ? ??
or something your animals would enjoy ???
im pretty sure if you leave a message on their machine that your going to turn your pigs or cows loose in that field theyd call ya bck really fast ,,,,ya mght wanna wait a while before actualy releasing the animals into that field though  but hey a good bluff lways seems to make someone pay attention
its always easy to appoligize for the drastic measures to get their attention --once you have it


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## Lucas (May 13, 2017)

chaossmurf said:


> well whats growing there ???
> is it something youd enjoy eating ? ??
> or something your animals would enjoy ???
> im pretty sure if you leave a message on their machine that your going to turn your pigs or cows loose in that field theyd call ya bck really fast ,,,,ya mght wanna wait a while before actualy releasing the animals into that field though  but hey a good bluff lways seems to make someone pay attention
> its always easy to appoligize for the drastic measures to get their attention --once you have it



Yeah it's the corn stubble it was corn last year and nothing done this year at all no equipment in sight.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Does the "big farm company" farm any other land close or around yours? How far are they from your land. 9 acres may be near last or when they do other close....James


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

Many states have deadlines about when notice to a farm tenant must be notified that you don't intend to renew a farm lease. 
Usually those are in the fall. 
The reason why is there may be investments in the land made ahead of time. 
For all you know there may have been fertilizer herbicide and seed purchased and perhaps even applied without your knowledge. 




hunter63 said:


> Call your lawyer......
> Many people have purchased "Land Bank" land....and it stays in till the agreement runs it course.
> Same with easements.......


 We have bought land in the CRP program and after finding out they did not plan on passing on the annual payments did some research and found out we could not compel them to pass on the payments since the contract wasn't with us. 
On the other hand they couldn't compel us to honer the contract and were forced to repay with penalties.


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## hunter63 (Jan 4, 2005)

AmericanStand said:


> Many states have deadlines about when notice to a farm tenant must be notified that you don't intend to renew a farm lease.
> Usually those are in the fall.
> The reason why is there may be investments in the land made ahead of time.
> For all you know there may have been fertilizer herbicide and seed purchased and perhaps even applied without your knowledge.
> ...


I think that's what happened to a guy up on the ridge....form our property.
He even had the place mowed as the weed trees had been taking over...

Only reason I know this ....I had asked permission to cross the property....and had discussed it with the owner.

He still is mowing it...
But found out after the fact(?)...that you need 35 acres to build in that township...and he had a partner.....
So who gets to build?.....Whoops.
I'm sure that this detail may have been overlooked in the dream of owning property.
Happens to alot of people.

Funny part is another 100 yds down the road is the township border......you only need 5 acres.
Pays to research your options


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## TWG1572 (Nov 10, 2015)

Maybe state laws differ, but around here sale of property does not break the cropland rental agreement. It transfers with the property. And since you know/were told that there was one year remaining, you can't claim ignorance either. This has been pretty well proven out in lawsuits over the years.

You can't just assume the lease is broken/decide to break the lease just because they aren't communicating with you. They may not want to, and unless the written lease specifies that they have to talk to you then they aren't breaking any clauses of it. It's not nice of them, but maybe they are also busy with spraying / replant / etc. And unfortunately, you don't know if they are breaking any clauses of the lease because you don't have one. It's also very possible they may not have to pay anything till harvest. Some are written that way.

I think if you rent this land out to another farmer, you risk having two people pissed off at you. The current tenant, and the new one. The issue is, you have no legal right to lease to anyone else. If the lease was written by a lawyer it may even contain a clause that requires mediation and arbitration before any action can be taken. 

If it were me, my first step would be to send them a certified registered letter informing them that you've purchased the property, you understand there is a lease in existence, and alerting them that the address to send their payment has changed to XX. Then I'd hope they pay - at least around here getting corn stubble rented out in mid June for a crop is going to be challenging.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

My folks sold a place with some land leased to a farmer. The buyer was notified and paid a prorated amount based on the length of the lease.
It was all in the paperwork when they sold...


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

They may have no need to talk with the OP. They may have made all their payments already.


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## TWG1572 (Nov 10, 2015)

Agreed. I hope the OP has learned a good lesson about due diligence with property purchases. Luckily for them, this is a pretty small $$ mistake. Life lessons are never free.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Many leases only have a one time or yearly lease payment so nothing may be due or not due yet.

The OPs problem is with the sellers for not providing a copy or details of the lease. 

WWW


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## Back2Basix (Dec 24, 2015)

My guess since it was only 9acres, was no written agreement and just the old "shake of a hand." I've "leased" a back 5acre lot to a farmer who put corn in but it was all verbal/shake of the hand. When i bought the place they had the same type of deal for the hay, nothing was written down, the old farmer stopped bailing, so i shook the hand of another farmer who was interested in bailing.

9acres around here not irrigated will maybe net you $1000/yr. Not something worth breaking the bank over and getting attorneys involved for


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## Wolf mom (Mar 8, 2005)

Back2Basix said:


> My guess since it was only 9acres, was no written agreement and just the old "shake of a hand." I've "leased" a back 5acre lot to a farmer who put corn in but it was all verbal/shake of the hand. When i bought the place they had the same type of deal for the hay, nothing was written down, the old farmer stopped bailing, so i shook the hand of another farmer who was interested in bailing.
> 
> 9acres around here not irrigated will maybe net you $1000/yr. Not something worth breaking the bank over and getting attorneys involved for


A "verbal" in real estate is only as good as the paper it was written on.......Try taking it to court.


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## Back2Basix (Dec 24, 2015)

Wolf mom said:


> A "verbal" in real estate is only as good as the paper it was written on.......Try taking it to court.


Exactly my point!!!! Not worth stressing about it especially cause there is no paperwork


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## krackin (Nov 2, 2014)

Considering the amount of $$$ one can invest in ag ground over years just to get it to being good reliable producing land, I would be surprised if there was a long term written lease. Were I to be leasing I would make sure of it. You make a verbal contract with 'Ol Spike' and he passes away the kids may not want to honor it. They may just strip it for loam at your expense.


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

Wolf mom said:


> A "verbal" in real estate is only as good as the paper it was written on.......Try taking it to court.


 Happens in farm country all the time. 
In this case chances are the farmer would win. 
If the land owner didn't cancel in writing by the cancelation date (November here) and has canceled grain checks from prior years it's unlikely the courts would rule for the landowner.


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