Does anyone on here lease land to tap on?

[Buckeye mapler]

I am trying to find some land to lease and will be putting around 300 taps on tubing intially with the hopes of adding more in the following years. Obviously I will want to have at least a 10 year lease agreement. I have some questions though.

1. What sort of things do you include in the agreement? Like if the land owner decides 2 years in he wants to void the contract or sell his land. How can I be reimbursed the tubing that would be kind of useless somewhere else?

2. What kind of money should I expect to pay. Is it so much per acre, per tap or what?

3. How can we legalize the contract? Is notorizing good enough?

4. Is there anything I am forgetting?

All the help I can get on this will be very appreciated. Thanks. This is for next year so I hope to have enough answers when I start looking. Thanks.

[BryanEx]

Not sure if it helps you Buckeye but UVM Maple extension has a standard land lease agreement available -

Lease Agreement (http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmaple/sugarbushlease.pdf)

If nothing else it will give you a starting point on the "what if's". I've also seen in posts from last year here on Trader about cost per tape for leased land.

[maplehound]

My expeerience has been that most land owners don't want to sign a lease on their woods for what amounts to a hobby. 300 taps just doesn't make a land owner willing to tie their land up for 10 years. However the ones I have talked too are ussually willing to let you setup a tubing system if it is in a woods that they don't typically use for any other purpose. I ussually just ask that they give me at least a year notice if they want me out. That way I have that year to make and then remove the tubing. I do have alot of mainline that I did remove from another woods and put back in the one I am currently in. You just need to make the manifold placement work the best you can.
The only real probllem I have had is deciding what kind of work I am allowed to do in the woods. Most owners frown when you ask if you can cut down a tree, some don't even like it if you cut a downed tree without them looking at it first. The owner I now deal with has sons who want to hunt deer and they don't like it when I clean up grapevines and multiflower rose bushes. They like the cover so the deer feel safer. I think I do have them rethiniking this some though. However they still don't want me in the woods working while deer season is in.

[Buckeye mapler]

How many taps would you consider "worth the land owners time"? I can see where that might be a problem. There are so many chunks of woods that have alot of maples in them that are hill side type property that there is no way they would be using it for anything. I could try to put some tubing up on them.

[maple flats]

I tap about 425 taps on a"lease" I put it in "" because they did not want to sing a lease. I am at their mercy. So far I have tapped there 3 years, growing from 150 to 450 now. When I can add Vac I can tap about 150 more on the side of a busy county road I am on and if I can run thru a culvert I can add about 150 more from the other side. To keep the privalege of tapping I pay them promptly (some in syrup the rest in $), pay fairly, offer to help them get their firewood out in a weekend wood bee (offered my tractor with log arch, and excavator if needed). I offer more than once a year. However, if they said, leave I'd have to do it. They are using an ag exemption for taxes, but not on just what I use.

[Buckeye mapler]

My part of the state isn't as syrup crazy as northeast ohio and eastern us. I mention something like a land lease around here and people won't understand the reason behind the lease, that being the tubing. I just want to be able to offer a fair price for both of us and then there is always the syrup they can have too. I would be scared to set-up with no lease, but I can see where offering some help keeps them soft and willing. I found some old threads on renting trees and it seems like .50 cent a tap is fair with tubing set-ups. I would be willing to remove down trees and such for them and clean the woods up per their desire.

[driske]

Having no luck at getting the neighbors to sign leases?? Same here. Been tapping one adjoining woods since 1985 without a lease. Rent has gone from .10 to .50/tap over those 25 years. Basically the relationship has been amicable.
The mainlines were laid out to avoid blocking their logging roads. The three brothers that own the parcel are aging (so am I) so I don't know how long I'll be allowed to continue once the new generation gains control.
Two other parcels are much the same. No lease, flying by the seat of my pants, keeping my fingers crossed for 16 years on one and 5 years on the other. 5,000 total taps involved.
( Flying by the seat of one's pants seems central to sugaring. I can't think of too many other ag or forestry harvests that are more variable in outcome.)
Be consistent, pay your rent, inform them of any tax advantages and do what's feasible to express your respect for the use of their property. And keep your fingers crossed.

[maplehound]

You need to look at it through there eyes. If you owned land with even a 1,000 taps on it, and you offer them .50 per tap that only amounts to $500. Now you want them to sign a lease that lets you cut down trees that you say improves the land and run tubing all through it that makes it hard for them to just take a casual walk. Would You Do That!!!!!!! But if you just go year to year and really comunicate with the owner about how appreciative you are and help him with any projects that are related to maintaining the wood lot or cutting him firewood (as well as giving him syrup) then you might just tap that woods for many years at a much lower cost per tap.

[Buckeye mapler]

I hear you maplehound. I will let them name the price, if it is too steap, I can always tell them I want to think about it, and maybe a lease is asking a bit too much. I guess the best thing to do is just run some ideas by them and see how much they are willing to let me do. I know one thing, I am not adding another bucket to my collecting runs. If I expand from here, it will be on tubing.:lol:

[maplehound]

Just be honest with them. Let them know that if they say yes, you will be putting a sizable amount of money into the setup and you want it to be there for enough years to make it pay. Then after they agree don't do anything that might upset them. Remember it is their land.
I tell myself every year I WISH I OWNED MY OWN LAND!!!!!!!! Then I do my best to work with the land owner and honor their wishes.

[Buckeye mapler]

I am going to talk to the mayor of our village today to see if she knows of any sizable lots with an owner that might allow me to do this. I have a few places in mind and I want to see if she knows who owns them too. I figure she knows most of the larger land owners and probably knows their temperment a little. I hate that I don't own my own land. I finish school next summer and when I get out and start my new job, I am going to at least get into a land contract.