Terminating an Agricultural Lease: Notice Periods and Process
With a German agricultural lease (Landpachtvertrag), it is not intention that decides but the calendar. Owners who want leased land back rarely fail on the law and almost always on a deadline that had already passed by the time the question was asked. This guide sets out which form of termination is possible when, how the deadlines are actually calculated, which formal errors make a notice invalid, and what the tenant can do about it.
Key Takeaways
- Ordinary termination under § 594a(1) BGB exists only for open-ended leases: notice by the third working day of a lease year, effective at the end of the following lease year.
- A fixed-term lease ends under § 594 BGB when the term expires and cannot be terminated by ordinary notice.
- Notice requires written form under § 594f BGB. Email is not enough.
- Termination without notice requires good cause (§ 594e BGB), and for breaches of contract generally a prior formal warning.
- If the tenant dies, § 594d BGB applies: one month from knowledge, then six months' notice to the end of a calendar quarter — for both sides.
- The tenant may, under narrow conditions, demand continuation (§ 595 BGB), with its own deadlines of one year and nine months before the end.
"Check in 10 seconds, no email, no callback"
For the general overview of rights and obligations in an agricultural lease, see the guide agricultural lease agreement. This article deals only with ending one.
The first question decides everything: fixed term or open ended?
Before any deadline matters, one question has to be settled: does the contract determine a lease term or not? That decides whether ordinary termination exists at all.
Open-ended contract. § 594a(1) BGB applies. Its wording begins with the condition that many guides omit: where the lease term is not determined, either party may give notice by the third working day of a lease year with effect from the end of the following lease year.
Fixed-term contract. It ends under § 594 BGB when the agreed period expires. There is no ordinary termination. Anyone wanting out earlier is limited to extraordinary termination, the statutory special cases, or a mutually agreed termination.
One special case blurs the line: if a contract for more than two years was not concluded in text form, § 585a BGB provides that it counts as concluded for an indefinite period. A ten-year lease agreed orally is therefore not void; it is open ended and can be terminated under § 594a. That is more often the rescue than the trap.
Ordinary termination under § 594a BGB, worked through
The deadline is unremarkable in wording and drastic in effect. Two quantities matter: the start of the lease year and the third working day.
Assume the lease year runs from 1 October to 30 September, as is customary in farming.
- Notice by the third working day of October 2026 → effective 30 September 2028.
- Notice on 10 October 2026, a week late → the declaration only takes effect via the next cut-off, so it is effective 30 September 2029.
One week of delay costs a full year. That is precisely why the notice period is the first figure an owner considering a different use of their land should check, not the last.
If the contract does not name a lease year
§ 594a(1) sentence 2 BGB settles the doubtful case: the calendar year then counts as the lease year, making the cut-off the third working day in January. Since both variants occur in practice, the start of the lease year belongs expressly in every contract.
A shorter period can be agreed
§ 594a(1) sentence 3 BGB permits a shorter period and requires only text form. Anyone newly leasing out land who cannot rule out a different use later should know this sentence: it is the simplest lever against the statutory lead time of up to two years.
The renewal trap in § 594 BGB
A fixed-term lease ends when the term expires, but there is a mechanism that turns it into an open-ended one without anyone signing anything.
For contracts concluded for at least three years, one party may ask in writing whether the other is willing to continue. If that party does not refuse in writing within three months, the lease is extended for an indefinite period.
Two conditions limit this, and both are regularly overlooked:
- The enquiry must be made within the third-to-last lease year.
- It must expressly point out the consequence of silence. Without that pointer the enquiry has no effect.
For lessors that means a properly formed enquiry from the tenant is not a letter to leave lying around. For tenants it means this is exactly the route to security.
Extraordinary termination without notice under § 594e BGB
§ 594e(1) BGB applies the tenancy law rules on termination for good cause accordingly. Good cause exists where, taking all circumstances into account and weighing the interests of both sides, continuation until the notice period expires cannot reasonably be expected.
Typical cases in agricultural leases:
- serious endangerment of the leased property through neglect of due care, such as destroying drainage or persistently exhausting the soil,
- unauthorised transfer to a third party; under § 589 BGB the tenant may not pass on use without the lessor's permission,
- qualified payment default under the special rules in § 594e(2) BGB.
Payment default: two tests, not one
This is where citations most often go wrong. § 594e(2) BGB knows two cases:
| How is the rent calculated? | When does good cause exist? |
|---|---|
| annually (the statutory default under § 587 BGB) | default with the rent or a not insignificant part for more than three months |
| by periods of less than one year, e.g. half-yearly or quarterly | default on two consecutive dates |
The common rule of thumb "only after three months" is therefore correct only for the first case. Anyone invoicing half-yearly can terminate earlier than they think.
A prior warning is usually required
Where the good cause lies in a breach of contract, termination is permitted only after a reasonable remedy period has expired without result or after an unsuccessful formal warning. Exceptions apply where a warning would clearly be pointless or immediate termination is justified by special circumstances. No warning is needed for payment default.
Termination without notice and without a prior warning is therefore the second most common procedural error, after the formal defect.
What is not good cause
Wanting to use the land differently — for a solar park, for a sale, for own farming — is not good cause. That clarification saves a great deal of futile correspondence.
The special cases: extraordinary termination with the statutory period
Alongside termination without notice, agricultural lease law knows a middle category: extraordinary termination with the statutory period. What that period is appears in § 594a(2) BGB: notice is permitted only for the end of a lease year and must be given by the third working day of the half-year at the end of which the lease is to end. In practice, a six-month period to the end of the lease year.
Two cases lead there:
Farm handover (§ 593a BGB). Where a farm is handed over by way of anticipated succession and leased land is handed over with it, the successor takes the lessor's counterparty position in the lease. The lessor must be notified without undue delay. If proper cultivation by the successor is not assured, the lessor may terminate extraordinarily with the statutory period.
Occupational incapacity of the tenant (§ 594c BGB). If the tenant has become occupationally incapacitated within the meaning of the statutory pension insurance, the tenant may terminate extraordinarily with the statutory period — but only once the lessor objects to the land being passed to a third party who would ensure proper cultivation. Incapacity alone is not enough. Any deviating agreement is void.
Death of the tenant: § 594d BGB
The lease does not end with death; it passes to the heirs. § 594d(1) BGB then gives both sides a special right of termination without any further condition: heirs and lessor may, within one month of learning of the death, terminate on six months' notice to the end of a calendar quarter.
Two details that make the difference in practice:
- The target is the calendar quarter, not the lease year. Applying the § 594a deadline here produces the wrong result.
- The one-month period runs from knowledge, not from the date of death. If it is missed, the original contract continues.
The heirs' objection. Under § 594d(2) BGB the heirs may object to the lessor's termination and demand continuation if proper cultivation by them, an instructed co-heir or a third party appears assured. The objection requires text form and must be made no later than three months before the lease ends, together with the supporting circumstances. If no agreement is reached, the agricultural court decides. A hardship request for continuation under § 595 BGB is excluded against this termination by § 594d(3) BGB.
Leases for more than 30 years: § 594b BGB
Where a lease is concluded for longer than 30 years, after 30 years either party may terminate, using the § 594a(1) period: third working day of a lease year, effective at the end of the following lease year. This is excluded for contracts concluded for the lifetime of the lessor or the tenant.
An important distinction: § 594b concerns agricultural leases. A land use agreement for a solar park with a term of 20 to 30 years is generally not an agricultural lease, because the land is not used for farming but for energy production. It is governed by its own terms, not by §§ 585 ff. BGB. Mixing the two transfers deadlines onto contracts they were not made for.
Form, receipt, signature: the three most common errors
§ 594f BGB consists of one sentence: notice requires written form.
That is notable because agricultural lease law elsewhere accepts the lower text form — for the contract itself (§ 585a), for agreeing a shorter notice period (§ 594a(1) sentence 3), for the heirs' objection (§ 594d(2)) and for the request for continuation (§ 595(4)). Of all things, the notice requires a handwritten signature.
Three rules follow:
- No email, no scan, no messenger. The notice goes out as a signed original.
- All lessors sign. Where the land belongs to several people, such as a community of heirs, they are all party to the contract. A notice with a single signature is invalid without valid authority.
- Make receipt provable. Notice takes effect on receipt, and the party giving notice must prove it. A registered letter proves posting, not reliably receipt. Robust options are handover against acknowledgement, delivery by a messenger who knows the content, or service by a bailiff.
What belongs in the notice
The law requires no reasons for ordinary termination. A complete notice contains:
- full names and addresses of all lessors and all tenants,
- the leased plots with Gemarkung, Flur and Flurstück (cadastral district, section and parcel), not just "the meadow by the stream",
- the designation and date of the lease contract,
- the unambiguous declaration that notice is given, and the date it takes effect,
- for extraordinary termination the good cause and a reference to any prior warning,
- place, date and handwritten signatures.
The tenant can push back: continuation under § 595 BGB
Valid notice is not always the end. § 595 BGB gives the tenant a claim to continuation under narrow conditions. Both must be met together:
- the farm constitutes the tenant's economic livelihood, or, where a single plot is leased, the tenant depends on it to maintain such a farm, and
- termination would amount to a hardship for the tenant or their family that cannot be justified even taking the lessor's legitimate interests into account.
The request may be made repeatedly. For lessors the deadlines matter more than the conditions, because that is where the request most often fails:
| Step | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Request to the lessor (text form) | at least one year before the end; where a notice period of twelve months or less applies, one month from receipt of the notice | § 595(4) and (5) BGB |
| Application to the agricultural court | no later than nine months before the end; where a notice period of twelve months or less applies, two months from receipt of the notice | § 595(7) BGB |
The court may admit a late application where this appears necessary to avoid undue hardship and the lease has not yet expired.
Continuation is excluded under § 595(3) BGB where, among other things, the tenant gave notice themselves, the lessor is entitled to terminate without notice, or the term agreed was at least 18 years (farm, farm-creating additional lease, moorland or wasteland cultivated by the tenant) or at least twelve years (other plots). The right can only be waived in a court settlement or before a lease conciliation body.
After termination: return, crop and a very short limitation period
Return. Under § 596 BGB the land must be returned in the condition corresponding to proper cultivation continued up to return. The tenant expressly has no right of retention over the land for their own claims.
Crop. Where the lease ends in the course of a lease year, the lessor owes the tenant under § 596a(1) BGB the value of the fruits not yet separated that would have been harvested before the end of the lease year under proper cultivation, with the harvest risk taken into account appropriately. Only where that value cannot be established for seasonal reasons does compensation for expenditure take its place under subsection 2. Value is the rule, expenditure the exception.
Late return. If the tenant does not return the land, § 597 BGB allows the lessor to claim the agreed rent as compensation for the period of withholding; further damages remain claimable.
Limitation. § 591b BGB sets a period of six months — for both sides, with different starting points: for the lessor from when they receive the property back, for the tenant from the end of the lease. Anyone wanting to claim for deterioration of the land therefore has six months, not three years. A handover record along the lines of § 585b BGB is not a formality but the only robust basis of evidence.
The practical route when land is to be freed for an energy project
On everything above, termination is rarely the right instrument: a fixed-term lease cannot be terminated by ordinary notice, a change of use is not good cause, and the ordinary period only bites after up to two years.
The usual route is a mutually agreed termination, often combined with financial compensation for the tenant. That it is feasible follows from the difference in scale between the uses: arable land as a rough guide is around 350 euros per hectare per year, ground-mounted photovoltaics typically 3,000 to 5,000 euros per hectare per year. Buying out a lease is therefore economically possible in many cases without a dispute.
Two things should be settled, in this order:
- Is the land suitable at all? Grid distance, protected areas and spatial planning decide whether a project is viable. That can be clarified before anyone speaks to the tenant.
- What is the deadline position? Only once both are known can a realistic schedule be set.
How leasing to a project developer works and what conditions are customary is set out under lease arable land for solar and, for permanent grassland, under lease meadow and grassland for solar. Current ranges are shown in the overview of photovoltaic lease prices.
The six most common mistakes
- Checking the deadline too late. Realising in spring that you want the land back means the cut-off in October or January has already passed.
- Giving notice by email. § 594f BGB requires written form; the error usually surfaces only after the next cut-off has passed.
- Not all owners signed.
- Terminating without notice and without a prior warning, although the ground was a breach of contract.
- Using the wrong deadline on the tenant's death — § 594d targets the calendar quarter, not the lease year.
- Overlooking the short limitation period in § 591b BGB and raising claims about the condition of the land months later.
Frequently Asked Questions on terminating an agricultural lease
Conclusion
With an agricultural lease, termination is not an act of will but a calculation with three variables: the type of contract, the lease year, and the form. A fixed-term lease runs out, an open-ended one needs up to two years of lead time, and both fail reliably on an email instead of a signature. Anyone considering a different use of their land should therefore settle two things first: whether the land is suitable, and when the next cut-off falls.
The first step is free and takes seconds: check your land at no cost.
This article provides a general overview of how German agricultural leases are brought to an end and does not constitute legal advice. The Landpachtverkehrsgesetz is additionally implemented differently by each federal state. Have your specific case reviewed by a lawyer before giving notice.