F
or ranchers offering or seeking grazing leases, one of Tiffany Dowell Lashmet’s strongest rec- ommendations is to get it in writing.
Lashmet, an assistant professor and Extension spe-
cialist for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, says a lot of leases operate on a handshake. While she describes mutual trust as the touchstone of the ag industry, she believes that a written contract is essential to protect- ing the rights of both parties. “You just never know what might happen or
what situation might arise,” she says. “When I give presentations, I get a lot of people who say something like, ‘I hate to bring this up now, because I don’t want the other person to think that I don’t trust him. We’re friends; we go to church together.’ I really am a believer that these lease agreements can be drafted so they protect both parties and protect the friendship between the parties, just by making sure that everybody is on the same page about what will happen in certain circumstances.” And as she points out, there is at least one other
party that may be interested in that document. “If you want to get a loan to purchase cattle, the bank may want a copy of the lease agreement to show where you’re going to put those cattle.” Lashmet will discuss grazing leases at the 2015
Cattle Raisers Convention, March 27 to 29 at the Fort Worth Convention Center. She is a statewide special- ist in agricultural law, working with landowners and producers on the legal issues affecting their operations, such as landowner rights, water law, oil and gas law, agricultural leases and estate planning. Ranchers looking for leases could include beginning
producers, expanding producers, and those who are dissatisfi ed with their current leases. Lashmet says, “A lot of times you have young, beginning farmers, or ranchers that just don’t have the capital to go out and purchase their own land, and leases are a great op- portunity for them. I know several ranchers who have been ranching for years and although they own some land, they are able to lease more and run more cattle.”
tscra.org
Components of a grazing lease What should be in the grazing lease? A better ques-
tion might be what should not be in it. “It can’t be too comprehensive,” Lashmet says. “I think it’s a good idea for people to really think through the many issues that might come up and then get those in writing.” In other words, if you can conceive of something
becoming an issue, it should be accounted for in the contract. Lashmet has compiled a “Texas Grazing Lease Checklist,” which can be accessed on her blog at www.
agrilife.org/texasaglaw and at the Texas AgriLife Ex- tension bookstore (
www.agrilifebookstore.org). She says, “It’s everything from simple stuff like the
names of the parties and the duration of the lease, to more complicated things like setting the stocking rate and limiting the uses that can be made of the land.” There is other basic information that should be
included in all leases, such as the lease price, the pay- ment schedule, the size of the security deposit and the consequences for failure to make timely payments; late fees, or even termination of the agreement. The land to be leased should be defi ned in a way
that will satisfy both parties or a judge and jury in the event of a dispute, if it gets that far. The lessor can use legal metes-and-bounds descriptions (which defi ne the property through physical features of the local geogra- phy, along with directions and distances), a photograph or diagram showing the specifi c location or, if words will suffi ce, a specifi c description. If an area or an activity — say, use of an ATV — is
to be excluded from the lease, that should be spelled out, along with access points and gating requirements. The lease should also identify which of the parties
is responsible for activities such as land improvements and fence and building repair. It should lay out all other uses of the land, like hunt-
ing, recreation and oil and gas exploration, so both parties understand what can and cannot be done in the pursuit of these enterprises and activities. “The way the law works, we let people contract for
whatever they want to agree to, so the lease is going to control anything like that,” Lashmet explains. “There
March 2015 The Cattleman 97
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