This free, downloadable guide (PDF) – written by an equine lawyer – gives any horse owner some easy-to-understand advice and practical tips to leasing a horse, and drafting an effective horse lease agreement.
A lease is a legally enforceable agreement usually between two parties that defines the relationship between the owner (“lessor”) and the party or parties intending to rent (“lessee”) the property in question. A lease specifies the subject matter of the lease, outlines the terms upon which the property is made available by the owner to the lessee, and defines what will happen to the property upon either successful or unsuccessful completion of the lease.
Leases are often more difficult to draft than sales contracts. And that also goes for horse leases. The reason for the difficulty is that a horse lease contemplates an ongoing relationship in which the use of the horse is transferred to another person, but the ownership of the animal remains with the “lessor” or the person leasing out the horse.
In a sales contract, the horse is sold, and title to the horse goes to the new person. Obviously there can be problems with a sales contract, particularly around the area of fraud or misrepresentation. But because a sales contract is a one time occurrence, and doesn’t envision a continued relationship around that horse, a sales contract is easier to draft.
