Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney with Schroeder Law LLC in Ottawa. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at lee@leeschroeder.com or at (419) 523-5523. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
Liens are a complicated and difficult to understand legal process available in some businesses. For farmers, creditors can have liens placed on crops to receive their money. There are even specific laws for liens on grain as opposed to other crops. There are many steps and specifications required to utilize liens.
Most farmers are prompt in satisfying their financial obligations. If a farmer does fall behind on an amount owed, there will be an unhappy creditor of that farmer.
It can be tempting (especially this time of year) for that creditor to see the many loads of beautiful, valuable grain being delivered to the local grain elevator and try to have some of the proceeds from those grain sales diverted to the creditor. This would be accomplished by having a lien — think of a lien as a mortgage against personal property rather than real estate — placed against that grain. The lien would grant the creditor the right to have the proceeds check from that grain sale made payable to both the farmer and the creditor.
Read Lee’s full article on crop liens in the Lima News here: Legal-Ease: Liens against farm crops
Source: LimaOhio.com, Legal-Ease: Liens against farm crops by Lee R. Schroeder, October 11, 2014