Horse Buy Back Contract [UPDATED]

[1] Brad Butler, Realizing Value and Creating Protection: A Practical Approach to Monetizing the Value of A Racehorse While Retaining Control over Future Interests, 7 KY. J. EQUINE, AGRIC. & NAT. RESOURCES L. 93, 113-14 (2015).

horse buy back contract

To thrive, horses require healthy amounts of food and water, adequate shelter and competent care. Horse owners must commit a great deal of time, energy, skill and money to ensuring their horses have everything they need to live a happy, healthy life of thirty years or more.

Any time a horse changes hands, he is at risk of being sold for slaughter. Local livestock auctions are frequented by middlemen who are looking to purchase young, healthy horses for foreign owned slaughter plants.

If, as a horse owner, you decide you can no longer care for your horse, you should not take her to a livestock auction. Instead, you should take advantage of a variety of humane options available to you.

In order to have a successful relationship, horses and owners must be matched by temperament and ability. By selling your horse to a carefully screened private owner you can ensure your horse and his owner are a good match. A buy-back clause in the contract will give you right of first refusal should the new owner ever decide to sell but requires that you maintain contact with the owner, sometimes for years.

Leasing involves giving someone else access to your horse for riding and companionship for a set period of time. A typical lease involves the lessee paying a portion of the horse's monthly expenses in exchange for a certain number of days where she can ride or otherwise spend time with the horse. Leasing can relieve some of your time and financial commitments to horse ownership without giving up ownership of your horse.

Hundreds of organizations across the country accept relinquished horses. Therapeutic riding centers, mounted police units and university riding programs all accept relinquished horses. Use the same careful consideration you would in choosing any home for your horse. Be sure to find out what policies the organization has in place for horses who are retired or are no longer suitable for the program.

Hundreds of U.S. horse rescues and sanctuaries take in horses with the intention of adopting them out to new homes. Sanctuaries provide a lifetime home for horses. If you relinquish your horse to a horse rescue or sanctuary be sure it is a legitimate, well-run organization that is able to properly care for your horse. You can use the HSUS/AWI Guidelines for Operating a Horse Rescue or Retirement Facility (PDF) to help you evaluate a potential facility.

In some instances, members of the Massachusetts State Employees' Retirement System (MSERS) may be eligible to add to their creditable service with a buyback of prior service. Examples of potential service that may qualify for a buyback includes prior refunded service, contract service, and military service. In order to purchase creditable service, you must currently be an active member-in-service of the MSERS at the time of your application. The service purchase must be paid in full prior to you receiving a retirement benefit. We strongly recommend you apply to purchase service early as it often takes time to process service purchase requests, and interest costs increase over time.

If you buy or sell a horse, and particularly if there is a trial period, you must be aware of the existing laws that could put you at risk. I have written extensively over the years about the basic legal principles of a purchase and sale of a horse. These include the following:

If you do not like the allocation of risk or other terms in the Sale of Goods Act, you can avoid them by drafting your own sale terms in a written sale contract. For instance, if you permit a buyer a one-month trial period with the horse, put it in a written contract that the risk of injury or death to the horse during that one-month period belongs to the buyer. This is in direct contrast to the rule in the Act, but it is completely acceptable so long as you put the terms in writing. You can also require the buyer to insure the horse during this trial period.

But he does have some ok things about him. He has that gorgeous color every pays for. He respects fences. He gets along great with other horses. (Especially mares) He is cute as a button. He will remind you to pay your health insurance on time. He loads in a trailer great. (If you can catch him or screw it, just run him in and he loads right up) He loves horse treats (will take them with or without chunks of your hand.) He has had a saddle on once after a tube of ace and a lot of blood, sweat and tears (mostly mine) He is a beautiful mover (while trying to catch him you will see this movement a lot)

I bought a horse about 1 year ago that came with a Right of First Refusal/Buy Back Contract. I will start out saying I keep horses for life and never plan to sell him. For the sake of discussion I want to ask this question. Is a buy back contract/ROFR binding if the seller is unfit to care for the animal?

The original owner (referring to as Breeder) who had bred the horse and sold to the Seller 2 months after he dropped on the ground also had a buy back contract with the Seller. The Breeder had turned down the option to buy back, but still showed up and caused a scene during our transaction. The Breeder was in the same situation as the Seller in not being able to afford him and her other horses.

How could I ethically and with good judgment offer him back to them? I know they are unfit to care for him and saw this first hand. If they bought him back I would be sending him into a horrible situation. ALSO, I understand circumstances for people can change, but I would be relying on things I have seen with my own eyes.

A very easy way to not have this horse go back to the previous owner or breeder in your hypothetical situation is to increase his value through training etc so that if you WERE to sell him, his previous people would in no way be able to afford him.

The reality is that these clauses ARE enforceable. The remedy for the holder of the right would be to sue for an order of specific performance directing the return of the animal upon payment of the contract price.

And then there is reality, which is what really happens. I have heard of so many sales contracts with those clauses, and they were almost never complied with, with no consequences. For whatever reason people tend to sell onwards without notifying the previous owner, in spite of such a clause and a possible quick sale to that individual. And the original seller may or may not hear of it, but if they do know, nothing legal is ever done.

One sticky point is that the price is rarely set in those clauses and that makes them virtually unworkable. The horse is probably worth a lot more or a lot less than that original sale. But how is price decided? Never heard of a contract that addressed that.

So, my speculation is that, in real life, you could sell the horse to anyone you wanted to, and nothing more would happen about it from the seller you bought from, other than some possible nasty words. Even if they could, they are unlikely to take court action.

There are people who are unfamiliar with the court side of contracts, who seem to believe that there are some sort of Contract Police who go around writing tickets (or something) every time someone violates a contract clause. Who will right wrongs, hold others accountable, and dispense a little justice. Like law enforcement on television.

Contracts exist in a completely separate world than does the kind of law enforcement we see on television - a murky world. Many people who are party to a contract just ignore it, or deliberately violate it, or ignorantly trample all over the agreed terms, and not a thing happens to correct them or the situation.Unless another party to the contract has the means and the motivation to take some kind of action.

Accountability for contracts has to be pursued by the individual who wants it. And that individual has to put up their own money to start the process and work through it. And there is no guarantee of an outcome, judges do whatever judges do. 041b061a72