What is the differences between a license and a lease agreement as it pertains to land for the purposes of hunting? It doesn't appear these terms are interchangeable from a legal perspective. I sent the standard Hunting Lease Agreement provided by the Ag department at KSU to the property owner. His lawyer insisted we sign a license agreement instead of a lease agreement. Is this a new thing? The content of both documents seem to be very similar. Near as I can tell it would appear a License agreement prevents you from being recognized as a tenant. Is this some new standard these days?
A lease is a conveyance of exclusive possession of specific property...usually in consideration of the payment of rent, which vests an estate in the grantee, [while] a license, on the other hand, merely makes permissible acts on the land of another that would otherwise lack permission. A license is said to be revocable at the will of the licensor. In reality, the "license" is probably the smart way for the landowner to go about it. However, when you read it carefully. With a license, he could "technically" let more hunters on the property, and you'd have no say over it. (Don't get all freaked out over it and paranoid) The reason the attorney is asking to do this, is because if you're "leasing" the land for the purpose of hunting, you can essentially do whatever you'd like (i.e.- move onto the property) Then he's gotta deal with you in court, etc. to have you removed. Remember when all of the houses were being foreclosed on? Squatters everywhere. I wouldn't get shook up over it. It's actually the proper way to go. In a sentence, he's giving you the ability to use his property, without "giving" you his property.
Could the licensee request amendments or riders stating he/she had 'exclusive' rights to hunt along with any other ideas they'd like to pursue?
What he said. We dont' allow a lease on our farm for that very reason. If I have an issue with someone doing some stupid crap I can simply terminate our aggreement as per our contract which I use the wording at will. This simply means that either one of us can part ways without any issues at anytime for any reason. Works out good for both. I've seen folks sign a lease for a 1000$ for just deer season here in NC simply becuase the farm was a total of 5K acres, and produce close to nothing the entire season. Hunt clubs here can be really good, or really tricky sometimes. They can also be very expensive with tenure to boot.
I will preface this the first time I wrote my reply that the site had a fatal error and I lost everything so this is going to be a shorten version. First and foremost THANK YOU so much for the definitive explanation. I also do see within the agreement that the landowner can terminate without notice or cause at any given time. This means he could take our money, kick us to the curb the next day, and keep our cash. Not that the landowner would do this... At the same time I am not signing the document the way it which that is written. I do have a follow up question. Do you think a mandatory Liability Insurance clause is warranted in a License agreement compared to a Lease agreement? Basically this license agreement gives me a right to trespass for a fee that can be revoked at any time. The document already includes a hold harmless clause. If the property is vacant and not used for agriculture purposes or other and I am not considered a tenant why would this be necessary? Seems over the top to me!
I have always gotten by with a simple Release of Liability document in addition to the lease agreement thankfully....
Yeh.. What happen to the days dropping a off a case of beer, some cash, with a handshake to finalize the deal.
Depending on how "good" the property is, you're really at the landowners will. You can obviously choose to walk away from the deal, but the bottom line is, you've got no equity in the transaction. He's holding all the cards. You want land, he's got land. That being said, you could easily have an "additionally insured" form filled out on his property insurance. I do this all of the time for my business. It's required by a number of my vendors. It's easy to do, the insurance company collects some basic information from you (one page), and voila! you're insured on his property. That would definitely take care of the issue as long as 2 things are in place. #1. He has insurance. #2. His property insurance already covers the ability to hunt. If he's not willing to do that, then you'll have to get the insurance he requires of you.
I'm not a lawyer yet (still in school), but you could always request a couple things in there. First of all, you could request that the land be exclusively licensed to you. If that was the original intent, it should be quite easy to add. If not, then he is probably trying to pull a fast one on you and license the land to multiple people. Second, you could request that he change the terminable at will clause into something at least granting you a couple weeks further access, but that may be pushing the envelope a bit. The insurance agreement is just for peace of mind. Part of the reason for that is while YOU may have signed a hold harmless clause, some third party may not have. If you injured a third party on the land, he could still be held liable for your actions potentially. The release of liability protects him against other things than your injury.
