Does your landowner require a cash deposit for damage etc? As a landowner I have been stuck with 6 junk campers and all kinds of trash when hunters left the lease. I am preparing to lease a place but want to consider some type of deposit ( refundable at end of lease) in the contract. Just wondering how others deal with this. My goal is to have the hunters leave the property clean and not have a mess to clean up ,etc.

They should have the very same goal. So sorry you have to go through this.

Old camper trailers would be my biggest fear when leasing a place out. I'd put something in the contract that any travel trailers must be in good travel condition and failure to maintain would constitute a breach of contract, and, that any hunter brought in living arrangements need to be discussed and approved by you. I'm not sure you can put in a big enough deposit to pay for removal that wouldn't be off-putting to the lessor.

I've seen what a "deer camp" can turn into after 20 years of an absentee landowner. It resembled a decent size Colonia (aka a slum).

It wouldn't bother me to pay such a deposit, and in fact, asking for it might help weed out the ones you don't want on your property. Also, the agreement should include a time frame in which the hunters must have removed all their stuff before you keep the deposit. This will also give them peace of mind as to how long they have to remove it.

I was on a lease once that was managed by a construction worker who used it to store job leftovers that should have been in a dump. And that's exactly what the camp looked like when the lease went south.

Wow. Ive never seen this happen but I can see how it could.

thats a hell of an idea

a few bullets from our lease agreement in this regard:

• No littering or dumping will be allowed at any time – to include camp area.
• Lessees are allowed to store living quarters and hunting equipment in the camp area after stated access dates. No trash or unusable equipment shall be stored/left on the property.
• Violators will be assessed a $250.00 fine in addition to the cost of removal of items.

No, but our land owner knows that with us it wouldn't be an issue.

If I was a land owner, I have thought about it and definitely would. I've seen the worst about what is being discussed here. I was on a lease once with this really old codger that was the junkiest person I ever knew. He had two campers, neither worth the tires that were rotting underneath them. He tried to "give" me one of them when I got on the lease, almost insisted I take it. No way, saw that coming. Any broke piece of crap he owned he brought to the lease for us to use, it was easier than taking it to a dump ground in his home town. He croaked and no one from his family wanted anything to do with all the crap he junked up our camp and lease with. Another, a tree crushed a camper in a wind storm. It was drug to the end of the row where we all parked our campers, looked like a shi- and sat there a year or two until one of our members dug a hole with a tractor, crushed what was left of the destroyed camper and buried it. Not to mention all the junk blinds on all types of towers left behind.

Get a deposit, good idea.

As the landowner, you are well within your rights to require a conditionally refundable deposit as a part of the lease agreement. You can have other requirements in your lease, such as a fine plus cost recovery for damages incurred (campers being one), but none of that is actual protection for you because you'll be forced into hiring a lawyer to pursue recovering those costs and it'll take time. If you have a deposit, you have much more power because you can straight up use that deposit as a part of the cost recovery and, if necessary, a lawyer can help defend you if/when this happens, but then your out-of-pocket costs are the legal fees and not the damages incurred.

oh heck yes would build in a deposit - unfortunately many lease hunters would never blink at leaving a bunch of crap on your property - I would include a date and a fairly large non refundable deposit to get ALL of their stuff off of you property

On our lease we are required to remove our travel trailers during the off season - we can pull them back in September - makes total sense to do so

Just make certain that it is a high enough deposit that the hunters want it back. I have seen them leave a deposit along with the trash so the land owner can clean it up. I haven't leased any of my properties in years so I don't have to worry about that kind of thing.

Frio

What is it about deer hunters that make them want to bring all the chit they don’t want at their house down to the lease and leave it there. I repurpose a lot of stuff but I’ve seen acres of deer hunters junk left at several camps when a place was sold.

Don’t ever let them start bringing their [censored] out or it’s all over

Deposit is a good idea but I’d make it sting to leave it….like at least half the annual lease rate. Cull some riffraff that way.
Do you also lease for multiple years or only annually?

I’m about to have a talk with a “friend” that I let hunt on my place. His son also hunts there. No charge.
The son and his wife are gold and help this old goat when I need a hand. They even do things that I haven’t gotten around to.

BTW, I don’t live there. It’s 70 miles away.

Dad not so much. He has been cutting firewood there for a long time. No problem. I’m butt deep in oaks. Anyway, my son in law cut down a huge oak and hauled it there to age and be split.I have an electric splitter. About 2/3 of it disappeared. No question about who did it. He was there hunting.

Although I consider it theft, I won’t go there. Just explain that anything that comes off the place will be approved by me. In advance.

ABSOLUTELY YES, get a cash deposit up front, especially if you have prime hunting land. You have to treat this like a business, you don't want "bubba booger pickers" on your property. You can assess fees and penalties all you want but collecting on those is another story. Good luck!

Collecting on this is not a problem. Collect it up front with the 1st years payment letting them know it will be returned at the end of the lease if the place is clean meaning any thing brought in by them is taken out by them.

Our landlord requires us to remove our campers from the ranch every year after the spring turkey season for this very reason. They figure if we can move them in and out each year they won't be stuck cleaning up someone's mess. Just to clarify, it wasn't us who left anything on the property. We are paying for previous hunters' sins. Doesn't bother me much, but it makes it a little tricky finding new hunters.

Property owners should also have to live up to the contracts. You guys snivel about the hunters that have paid you thousands of dollars to have a deer lease leaving a travel trailor, feeders and stands but never mention the landowners giving a March to March lease and then telling everyone the lease is terminated in December on the 30th and giving 15 days for the hunters to remove their property. The reality is I have had far more landowners screw up deer leases than hunters. Like for instance letting their extended family, the grass lease guy and his extended family hunt out of our stands when we aren't there, really shooting up the place. Of course this is right before the weekend. Or crap like moving in a hundred head of cows on the opening weekend of deer season. Or selling the property and never telling the hunters they sold it and to have the new owners throw the hunters off the property. No I have to say that a lot of the people who lease property to hunt on need to clean up their acts.

Who pissed in your cheerios this morning?

So pointing out truth is pissing in your cheerios? I have probably been on 10 deer leases and only a couple had property owners that were decent and honest individuals.

Haha, my thoughts exactly when I read that post. But then I saw who posted it. This guy has a long history of whining and complaining on this forum.

You little pissant GFY. Better yet PM me your location.

I have always find landowners always seem to like me and wanted to stick around. I wonder what is different?