Landlord-tenant relationships in Tennessee

The purpose of this study is to test the validity for Tennessee conditions of a check list of 17 recommendations proposed by the Division of State and Local Planning, Bureau of Agricultural Economics.¹ The list of recommendations as first proposed is as follows:

1. Leases drawn for a long term of years,

2. Automatic continuation clause in leases,

3. Six to eight months notice of termination or renewal,

4. Compensation by landlord to tenant for termination of lease without good cause,

5. Compensation by landlord to tenant for improvements made by tenant and not exhausted at the time the tenant moves,

6. Compensation by tenant to landlord for any damage or deterioration to landlord’s property,

7. Settlement of differences between landlord and tenant by arbitration,

8. Limitation of landlord’s lien to the production of the farm during current year,

9. Elimination of bonus or privilege rent,

10. Increasing the use of stock share leases,

11. Better crop share leases adapted to conservational rotations,

12. Combination crop share and livestock share leases,

13. Giving tenant option on farm in case of sale,

14. Encouragement of home ownership through Government aid to farm operators either by long term credit at low interest or by the purchase of farms by Government for sale to tenants, with payments adjusted to parity,

15. Discouraging the ownership of rented farms by absentee landlords through differential taxation based on acreage or some other feasible means,

16. Control of speculation in land by taxes on profits made through the purchase and resale of farm property, and

17. Clarify the position of the sharecropper by making all sharecroppers: (1) tenants, or (2) farm laborers.