Possble to sell farmland and keep Wind Gen Rights? - Posted by carsick

Posted by carsick on March 23, 2006 at 08:23:49:

Thank you for your very thorough and great post. Forgive my ignorance, but a few more questions for you if you wouldn’t mind:

Who would be the first person I should call? A surveyor? Should I also get my attorney involved??

Thanks again.

Possble to sell farmland and keep Wind Gen Rights? - Posted by carsick

Posted by carsick on March 22, 2006 at 13:34:44:

Just wondering if it’s possible to sell the family farm while keeping the rights to any future wind generation income. The land is in ND, which is very windy, but they currently don’t have a grid big enough to plug into. I know we could keep the mineral rights, so I’m assuming the same could be done for wind generation rights.

Has anyone here negotiated something like this before. Any idea what those rights would be worth per acre???

Thanks in advance for your reply. Carsick.

Easements! - Posted by Tony

Posted by Tony on March 22, 2006 at 15:31:27:

The way i would structure it is to find out how much land “space” the windmill would need 50x50 or what ever, then find out how far spaced they need to be and the best positions, have a survey done and create easments for these plots for future use.

Be sure that the easments include a way in (road) to access the sites.

To me this is better then creating leases. By using easments the farmer has the right to use the land up until you need it and it don’t cost you anything once the survey is done and the easments are recorded in the deed.

By the way this is great thinking out of the box. this is common place with billboards and cell towers. so if you need a model just find a billboard or cell tower close, do a title search and modify what they did to suit your needs.

another thought would also be once the easments are in place prior to your sale there is no negotiated cost they are buying subject to the easments, and i would assign or hold the easments in a seprate entity such as a LLC, Nevada Corp or a trust.

Hope this helps
Tony

Re: Easements! - Posted by carsick

Posted by carsick on March 23, 2006 at 12:06:10:

What other options exsist for keeping the wind rights for the property?

If an easement is used, what would prevent the new owner from putting up wind generators next to our easements?

Thanks again.