Farms, land and leases
Leases, land sales, and the farm’s next generation
Most of the land around Hutchinson changes hands, or changes tenants, without a lawyer. That usually works. When it doesn't, it's because nobody wrote down who pays for what, or what happens when someone dies.
Cash-rent and crop-share leases
A written lease that says the rent, the split, who pays for fertilizer and fences, and how either side ends it. I can also read the one you already have and tell you what it leaves out.
Buying or selling ground
The contract, the title work with the title company, easements and access, and what happens to this year’s crop and any existing lease when the ground sells.
Passing the farm on
A plan for which child farms and which children are treated fairly some other way: wills, a trust where one helps, buy-out options and a lease that outlives the parents.
Fences, roads and neighbors
Boundary lines, field access, a drainage ditch someone filled in. Most of these end with a letter and a survey, not a lawsuit.
A worked example
A quarter section and three heirs
A widow owns 160 acres her son has farmed for twenty years on a handshake. Her two daughters live out of state and don't want to farm, but they don't want to be left out either.
We sit down together once, then I draft three things: a cash-rent lease from the mother to the son at the going rate, a will that leaves the land to all three children equally, and an option for the son to buy his sisters' shares over ten years at an appraised price. Everyone signs the same afternoon.
Names and figures are made up; the shape is typical.
What it took
Flat fee for the lease, will and option, quoted in writing first
Two meetings, about six weeks
Appraisal and recording fees are separate
Farm and land questions
Do I really need a written farm lease?
Not always. But an oral lease leaves the hard questions to whoever is left when something changes: a death, a sale, a drought year. A written one costs less than one season of arguing about it.
Can you handle the sale if a title company is already involved?
Yes. The title company insures the title and runs the closing; I represent you, read the contract before you sign it and make sure the deed and any lease say what you agreed.
We want to keep the farm in the family. Where do we start?
With one meeting where everyone says out loud who wants to farm and who wants something else. The documents come after that, and they are the easy part.
Do you handle oil and gas leases?
I’ll read a lease with you and explain what it says. Royalty disputes and complex mineral title go to lawyers who do nothing else, and I’ll give you names.
Bring the lease you have, or the one you don’t
A first call costs nothing. Tell me about the ground and the people, and I’ll tell you what I’d write down first.