Lease with option contract

[SFVine]

Hello everyone!

I recently heard about a horse that used to be an all-rounder, child-proof horse that has been sitting in a field for 4-5 years. She is about 12 yrs old and the owner is older and wants to get her off his hands. He said that he would free lease the horse out indefinitely but would eventually like to sell her.

He originally was asking in the $10-15k range when she was in work/showing and said he would take $2-3k now. I do not know the man at all, but I have friends that do. They say he is pretty straight forward, but I would hate to put a ton of work into her this summer, have my kids fall in love, and have him turn around and say just kidding! Now she looks great and is $10k again.

I would prefer not buying her right out of the field because I need to be sure she is as child proof as they say she is for my 6 yr old. Also, he does not want anyone on his farm, so I would have to bring her to my place before I can even really evaluate her.

Due to all these facts, I would like to suggest a lease with option to buy contract, with a predetermined, mutually agreed upon purchase price. I was wondering if anyone has a good contract that they have used? What have you included in it? Are there any negatives to going this route? Thanks!

[Scribbler]

Why not do a purchase with a trial period? You will buy her for $3000 after a two week or four week trial at your place

[OverandOnward]

For $2-3k, buy her. For that amount it is not worth fooling around with a long-term contract that will be difficult to construct and later on may be harder to follow. What if she gets sick or hurt? Dies? Suffers a career-ending injury?

If she doesn’t work out for you, look for her next good home. I understand about the kids falling in love, but it could be that this is the time to teach them how to let go when there is something else that is better for the horse as well as for themselves, where she won’t be under-performing for her family.

And if she does work out, you don’t have anything else to wade through with the seller.

That’s going to be far less trouble, and probably a lot less expensive, than getting into an extended business/personal relationship with someone you don’t know and can’t predict. What other people say about him doesn’t matter. What he does with a lease/buy contract will not be the context for their experience, and people can be very different in different situations.

Ask yourself: Do you really want to be contractually connected to this stranger for a long period of time?

[Compadre]

Take her for a 2 or 3 week trial period, and then buy her if you like her. She won’t be back to perfect in a week or two, but if she was as good as he says she was, it will be obvious whether or not you can get her back to that point.