10302 Contadino's land rights

If you lend your land informally or formally, via a contract, to a contadino, don't the neighbours rights to purchase the land at the point of future sale then vest in the contadino's hands?

If they have claim to purchase the land at the point of sale by virtue of the fact that they have been working it, or alternatively have to sign away their rights, then how does the landowner protect himself from the contadino using this trump card as leverage to either buy the land or extort monies or concessions before he will sign his rights away?

Category
Legal

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 08/31/2008 - 17:35

To have rights of prelazione on neighbouring land the coltivatore diritto has to own the land which he works. So if he has a properly drawn up rental contract he isn't the 'owner', and he has no rights of uscapazione after twenty years continuous benefit from the land (squatters' rights) by virtue of the rental contract.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 03:09

[quote=Charles Phillips;95789]To have rights of prelazione on neighbouring land the coltivatore diritto has to own the land which he works. So if he has a properly drawn up rental contract he isn't the 'owner', and he has no rights of uscapazione after twenty years continuous benefit from the land (squatters' rights) by virtue of the rental contract.[/quote]

Thanks Charles,
If we ignore the squatters rights after 20 year (which I understand) and concentrate on the shorter term, if I draw up a contract to rent my land to a contadino does this mean that during that contract, if I decide to sell the house (including the land that he works), the contadino has first option to buy my land that he is working- rather than the neighbours having this right.

If this is true, then is there something that I can do to protect myself from the contadino exercising these rights or using them to exploit the situation (using his trump card as financial leverage). I would not want to sell the house and land separately as I feel that a farm without it's land would be a real shame and a far less attractive proposition.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/01/2008 - 06:30

No - as a tenant he does not have the right of prelazione. The only possible minor difficulty I can see arises if his tenancy agreement is still in force when you want to sell - (he then might have a reasonable small claim on some compensation, but not any right to have frst shot at buying the land). To protect yourself from this eventuality (or minimise it into irrelevance) you could make the rental contract renewable on a short term basis, say one year.