Bay City Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture partnered with Matagorda County Texas A&M AgriLife Extension for an informational “Ag Breakfast” with lawyer Jim Bradbury last week.
Bradbury gave a presentation on hunting and renewable energy leases.
“I’ll be going over three super-hot topics this morning – hunting, solar and wind liabilities for landowners,” he said.
“There is a lot of statewide debate on solar in regard to possibly losing farmland due to solar.”
He stressed that all leases should be in writing and that landowners and lessees should consult with their own respective attorneys when entering any lease.
“That goes without saying, but you’d be surprised at what can happen on a hunting lease,” said Bradbury.
“Hunting in Texas is a privilege, not a right. Landowners do have the legal right to charge a fee before allowing others to hunt on their property.”
He added that landowners needed to secure documentation from everyone that would be leasing the property.
“You need a copy of the signed lease with everyone identified in it along with a liability waiver and signed copy of the Texas Agritourism Act waiver,” said Bradbury.
“It might also be good to require written landowner approval before anyone can bring a guest to the lease.”
Bradbury outlined a number of other facets to hunting leases including a property description, price, lessee insurance, damages to the property and compliance with all laws and safety practices.
“Believe it or not, stupid people do happen,” he added.
“Make sure to mention all licenses on lease paperwork, too.”
With regards to wind and solar land leases, Bradbury cited failed Senate Bill 624 that sought to create permitting requirements for renewable energy generation facilities.
“Property owners have a right to lease, but we are also losing a lot of agricultural land,” he added.
“Right now it’s the Wild West for solar and wind without permitting requirements. Renewable energy is seeing astronomic growth in Texas right now.”
Bradbury commented that while overall smaller in size solar farm panels cover the entire ground.
“The good news is that there are statutes protecting landowners for the removal of equipment,” he explained.
“Though the removal is only after a project is completed and all of the landowner’s requests are written into the lease.”
He provided an example for removing wind power facilities from a property including turbines, concrete pads, buried cables and overhead power lines.
“Some landowners want their property back to the way it was before the lessee installed their equipment,” said Bradbury.
“That includes removing roads and ensuring holes are filled in with topsoil – or even further to reseed pastureland.”
Bradbury also reminded the audience that there were also property tax implications for landowners in renewable energy leases.
“A solar lease will likely result in a landowner losing an agriculture use or open space valuation for their property,” he explained.
“You can write in the lease that the company has to pay all differences in property taxes including rollback, during the lease and the 5-year period required to get the land back into open space valuation.”
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