It is literally impossible to make a boarder leave if they are not wanting to leave. Eviction laws do not cover horse boarding.
And you are right, that can happen to anyone. The point of the post was to rebut the theory that you research before you let them in. Most people fall for this person’s social media presence and think they are an attentive horse owner.
If a self care boarder fails to provide care they are responsible for it could be considered animal abandonment that then falls under animal welfare laws
No, it is not. At least not in my area. That is like saying that someone boarding their dog somewhere cannot be forced to go elsewhere for service if they break contract by falsely representing the dog as friendly when it’s vicious, or that a retail store or restaurant can’t ask a customer to leave and never return. Boarding is part of the service industry.
I don’t believe I said this was a 100% fail-proof method, but again, in my area, it’s standard operating procedure to open the network behind the scenes and see who knows who and if anyone can connect to this person and knows anything about their past boarding history. Sometimes, there’s little history, other times a person may be new to the area, and those folks are basically crap shoots. Most decently connected BOs though can come up with at least a little background on people applying to board with them.
Maybe they do it differently in your area, like so many things, it is area specific.
The difference here, compared to a restaurant or a store or such, is there is a horse involved. If the owner is not willing to take their horse, continues to pay their board bill per the contract, you can not just drop the horse off somewhere.
If there was not a large expensive to care for animal in the mix, it would be different.
And again, your experience might be different.
I personally know someone who tried for a very long time to get a boarder out of their barn, but they kept running into legal hurdles because the boarder was willing to pay their board as agreed to in the contract.
Was there no clause in the contract that covered that? My boarding contracts have always included language that allows the barn owner to terminate & how/when the horse owner must vacate. There may have even been language regarding what happens if the horse owner does not, I can’t quite recall all the details.
It would certainly be prudent to include, though.
But what can you do even with the language?
It is not truly legal to tie the horse to a random mailbox. You can not just drop it at some local shelter and pretend you do not know who it belongs to.
The stableman’s lean does not apply because board was paid (at some point this was all done thru lawyers).
Aren’t most boarding contracts month-to-month, though? Even if someone pays you can still kick them out after 30 days notice.
You can tell them that they have to leave. Sure.
What do you do if they do not leave?
Well the person part of that is easy. It’s trespass after a certain point of being told not to return.
You are right that the horse part is harder. But absent the ability to come play with Pookie, any remotely responsible person will move them.
You could put language in the contract as to what will happen to Pookie if the evicted boarder does not remove him. Auction, etc?
Interesting idea. Add a sentence or two citing the state’s stablemans’ lien law, and a time frame.
And fees.
Of course keep the time frame x fees below what small claims court allows so you can go that route.
One of the best places I boarded took first and last months board and a deposit of another month board. The first month you were late you received notice. This way the barn already had two months board in escrow to cover slow leavers.
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The issue here isn’t nonpayment, but someone who might be a PIA boarder but is still paying up and doesn’t want to leave.
What about calling animal control, stating the animal has been abandoned as the animal is no longer welcome on the premises? Or noting other violations of the boarding contract, not just payment?
I have seen this happen at barns where a boarder was paying board, but not taking lessons or showing with the trainer (this was “understood” but not in the contract) and the trainer had a new would-be boarder who wanted to show and take lessons and would bring in more income. Ultimately, the people moved out, but not with some bad blood at the end of it.
Or, how about not cashing the board check/refusing the payment - and proceeding as a stableman’s lien?
ETA: I just re read your post - I think that kicking someone out because there’s a better paying client behind them is pretty crappy, unless there was plenty of warning.
This scenario has to apply across all boarding situations though, not just self care. I don’t have dreams of ever owning/operating a boarding facility, but if I did, I would ask for references before agreeing to bring in a client.
Yeah, it does sound pretty crappy but I can also understand from the barn’s perspective that board is a loss leader. I think this example highlights more the importance of clear contracts–if the BO of a show barn wants people to lesson and show, then it should be in the contract that a boarder is expected to lesson once a week, and go to a certain number of shows per season, versus to be “understood” that this is expected. Of course, even then, this can get murky when a boarder’s horse gets injured, or the boarder is really busy and doesn’t feel like showing…
I totally get why a trainer/barn would want to do that. But the boarders not meeting that aspect of the business case should get, IMO, at least 4 months warning that the business model is changing, and if someone can’t fit with the new model they should start looking immediately.
If the BO pushed them out with little to no warning when they were technically following all the rules and weren’t bat-crap crazy, that seems tremendously unfair.
It was included in my contract and if I couldn’t lesson, as in when I was pregnant, he got a training ride.
We got charged for lessons whether we took them or not.
No, just to clarify, this was a show barn–the boarder in question knew it was a show barn, but boarded saying verbally she’d take lessons and show, but just never did (the barn wasn’t super-high level as a show barn, to be honest, but still showed locally at rated shows). Again, it was pretty vague as an agreement, and then another person came in who actually, genuinely wanted to do both of those things.
Honestly, prepayment is probably the best from a BO’s perspective (I’m not BO, btw, just have seen it from all sides). For all lessons, truthfully.
Ah, I get it. Yeah, they needed to move. If there was warning given, no bad blood was needed but I am not surprised.
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