Agricultural leases

Much of the land that is farmed is not owned by the farmer who works it. It is rented — sometimes under a carefully drafted lease, often under an arrangement sealed long ago with a handshake, with a relative or a previous owner. Agricultural leases are usually governed by rules of their own, distinct from those of an ordinary rental, and those rules cut both ways: an owner may find the land far harder to recover than expected, and a tenant may give up rights by signing the wrong document or letting a disagreement drift.

A lease of farmland is rarely only about the rent. It decides who may farm the land and how, what each side owes the other while it runs, and on what terms it comes to an end — and it follows the land through a sale or an inheritance:

• the rules on when the use of land counts as an agricultural lease at all, whatever the parties chose to call it;
• the rules on what a lease must contain, how it is recorded, and what applies when nothing was ever written down;
• the rules on how the rent is set and revised, and on challenging a rent that seems out of line;
• the rules on what the tenant may do with the land — crops, improvements, new buildings, and sharing or subletting it;
• the rules on repairs and upkeep, and on who pays for buildings, drainage, hedges and fences;
• the rules on what becomes of the lease when the land is sold, inherited or divided;
• the rules on ending the lease — notice, the owner’s grounds for taking the land back, and the tenant’s defences;
• the rules on settling up when the tenant leaves — compensation for improvements, and for damage to the land or buildings.

Our lawyers can support you with this.