Here is the scenario. You are buying a tract of rural unimproved land from a timber company. The timber company leases the hunting rights to someone. At closing the hunting lease is null and void. Here is the catch, the hunting lease guys leave things on the said property. Stands, shooting houses, feeders, implements, farm equipment, things of that nature. Some of which have a fair amount of value. On the day of closing the new owner changes the locks and takes possession of the property. Does the new owner of the property gain possession of items by abandonment? Or do the old hunting lease guys still have right to their stuff? This is with understanding proper notice of the sale was made to them.

The owners of the equipment have the right, for a defined, reasonable period of time, to come get their property. Our hunting lease gives us 120 days in this scenario.

My thinking is regardless of what the law says, give a good faith effort with a reasonable amount of time for them to claim their stuff.
Not sure what the law is but 90 days would seem fitting.

We had a tract a few years ago near Union Springs that sold to an individual. He tried to claim out stands, etc, so we called a game warden we knew and he made sure we had ample time to get our stuff out.

I don’t want their stuff. They are welcomed to have it. But if they are going to take part of it, they need to take all of it. But I don’t want to bring in my stuff while, every Tom, Dick, and Harry are still coming in and out.

If it's a club just notify the one in charge of your request for them to remove property. Better yet get something typed up stating a reasonable amount of time for them to remove items and get it signed by the one leasing the property. I would give them ample time but not excessive time. Personally 45 days should be more than ample

Unless otherwise described in the contract, possession of all items associated with the sale conveys at the time of said closing.


“Timber companies’ provide notice to hunting clubs before the closing and instruct them to remove all personal items before that time.

I once had a club remove a wooden bridge (after closing) they said they installed. They wish they hadn’t. The land was sold to an attorney.

Not sure where the attempted quote posted above in red, came from, but NOT ALL timber companies have their affairs in order. I wouldn't assume anything about what a company has done or not, unless I had something in writing.

There IS, going to be an issue somewhere, in which YOU, need to know ABSOLUTELY, what is true or not, BEFORE you take actions.


I'd want to make sure I had documentation of how and when the proper notice of sale was given to the hunting club, and the contract made between the timber company and hunting club, and review it first, to make sure there aren't any loopholes which are going to bite you in the rear.

It may have been given to the club president, but he may have not passed it along to the rest of the members, or new members of that year, etc.

God Bless,
David B.

The answer to your question is no, as to an abandonment argument.

The better answer is the lease which was terminated governs this scenario. It likely has provisions concerning removal of personal property upon lease termination. Those provisions probably say after some period of time, possibly even the termination date, the property is deemed abandoned. The timber company should give you a bill of sale but they won't.

I'm not sure how you can say it's no to the abandonment question. It would depend on the language of the lease. If the lease specifically states that the lease is automatically terminated on the day of sale if said property is sold, then all the language of the lease agreement is then dissolved upon transfer of ownership. In that case, it's up to the new owner as to what he allows anyone to remove from his property. If there is no such language in the lease, then the new owner would be purchasing the property with an underlying lease that he would have to honor until the lease expires.

What's legal and what's right are two different things. If it's my property and there was no lease termination upon sale clause, then I would give them a specific amount of time to get all of their things off of the property and anything left after that date would be forfeited.

I don't know the legalities, but when I bought some property I gave the previous lease holders a realistic deadline to get it by.