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Print articleProposals for New Rules Concerning Agricultural Land Leasing
June, 2015 - Anna Moll, Senior Associate / Advokat
Historically, the contractual parties in the land lease relationship have most often consisted of large agricultural estates, the land of which is leased out to small farmers. The landowner was regarded as the stronger party in the contractual relationship and the rules concerning agricultural land lease were designed to provide the conscientious tenant farmer a more secure existence. Today it is not unusual that the property owner is a person who himself lives on his farm but leases out the farm’s total land of 20–30 hectares. The tenant can be a large-scale farmer who owns several hundred hectares and also leases additional land from a number of small farmers. Thus, the relationship of relative strength may now be reversed.
About 40 percent of Sweden’s agricultural land is leased out, which makes leasing a very important institution in Swedish agriculture. The starting point for the development of the new rules has been that the land lease should be an attractive form of tenure for both landowners and tenants. By increasing, for example, the predictability for the holdings of the tenancy relationship in the lateral lease and the parties’ ability to adapt the lease rent according to the particular agricultural land’s or farm’s circumstances, the supply of farmland for lease is expected to increase.
