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Questions about non paying boarder

11K views 47 replies 20 participants last post by  lifesabeach 
#1 ·
I am boarding 6 horses in NV and have not been paid for this month. I have a contract but can't seem to get her to sign it...my bad! I am a small private facility and I only charge $200 per horse per month for full service board.

I sent a certified Lein notice just like the statues state announcing if payment is not received by such and such a date the horses will be sold at auction. I am following the law by the book.

My question is can she come on the property to ride and see her horses? Can I lock her out until board is paid?

Why in the world would someone pay board on 6 horses and act like I am denying her right to visit them? She had her Uncle call me the other night and she is trying to bully her way around paying with one excuse after another.

According to her interpetation of the statues/law it states once the obligation of how much she ows me is met then I can't sell any of the others and they will still be on my property and I want her gone!

Does anyone know if what she states is true? Here is the paragraph she sent me;
NRS 108.550, paragraph 2, states, "The sale provided for in this section may be conducted by the person furnishing the feed, pasture, or board, or by any other person who may be designated by the lienholder. Only such number of animals will be sold as may be necessary to discharge the lien and pay the cost of the publication of notice, plus the sum of $5 to be allowed to the person making the sale."

Two of the horses have value the others don't!

She left a mutual friend a message to please buy one of her horses so she can pay her board and feed her family.

Also last month she took her mare to have her bred and wants me to give her a 5 day discount. Soon I may be stuck with 7 horses!

After this I will probably never board horses again.

Tia
Lisa
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#2 ·
I never would have allowed her on my property without her signature on that contract.

Why in the world would anyone have 6 horses, then send one to be bred, when she doesn't have the money to care for them and can't feed her family. Absolutely insane.

Sorry that I'm not much help, I know nothing about the law regarding this, but I hope that you get your money and get her butt off your property.
 
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#3 ·
6 horse @ $200/horse per month = $1200 bucks.
4 glue sticks might fetch $300 at auction on a good day, assuming they sell.
2 decent horses might fetch a decent dollar, but per the stated law, you can only sell enough to cover the past due balance.
I'd start with the decent horses and go from there, having a bargain basement sale.
Heck, if you're close, i'll take them all for $1200!
There! I fixed it!
 
#4 ·
Put an ad in the local newspaper stating her name, how much she owes and give the known names of the horses. That sends a big signal to everyone that she doesn't pay her bills. State that monies owing must be paid in full by xxxx date or horses will be shipped to the first auction.
 
#5 ·
Where I board my one horse there was a boarder with 3 horses and the day I brought my horse there they brought a 4th horse there unannounced straight from the auction. They owed 3 months back board(barn owner had a contract) when they brought the 4th. A few weeks after I brought my horse there they took their horses in the middle of the night. They owed about $4,000! So far the barn owner hasn't seen a dime of that and it's been almost a year.

Be careful something similar doesn't happen to you.
 
#6 ·
I'm so sorry about how this makes you feel. I too board for friends and it has been the biggest pain in the butt. They have all been late for the past few months, bounced a check on me too. I don't see anything in that post that says you have to keep her horses there if she pays her board. I would find out if there is a law about whether or not you have to give her notice when you are done boarding horses with her. There is a website Equine Law and Horsemanship Safety that you go to click on your state and look up the equine laws for your state.
 
#7 ·
Oh I see--

So basically, this person is telling you to take one of the horses in exchange for this month's board.

In her mind, she has six horses - you will be taking one - leaving five...

BUT one is being bred - giving her six horses once again. Win-Win.

I'm sure she assumes you will be happy with one of the lower-value horses, too.

I think you have to tell her NO DEAL! And just ask her to leave before this becomes a pattern for her...
 
#8 ·
When we have boarders not pay a bill we send out a certified notice they will go to public auction at 30 days and send them off. Only once has the owner not paid and the horse sold at auction for the amount they had due on their board. The others we gave eviction notices to and made them leave the property and were not allowed to leave until their board was paid in full. Get them gone sooner rather than later.
 
#9 ·
Thank you everyone.

My boarder refuses to sign a contract. Can I refuse her on the property? Also she is willing to sell the best 2 to pay us but we do not want her to show the horse on our property especially without a signed agreement. what if she does sell and does not give us the money. can we refuse her the right to sell because we have a Lein on all 6 horses,
Tia
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#13 ·
can you afford to take the loss of no board for these horses if she were to come and remove them today? if you're willing to call that good - tell her to come get them. if not, then take the next legal step to have them sold at auction. if there is no contract, there is no reason why you must keep them. does she even have proof of ownership of these horses?

may i ask where you are?
 
#14 ·
can you afford to take the loss of no board for these horses if she were to come and remove them today? if you're willing to call that good - tell her to come get them. if not, then take the next legal step to have them sold at auction. if there is no contract, there is no reason why you must keep them. does she even have proof of ownership of these horses?

may i ask where you are?
she said NV in the original post i believe. Not sure what part. When i lived in Utah last year. horses at public auction were going for about 40.00 a head. even the broke ones
 
#17 ·
yeah the market here in reno is absolute crap at the moment so she'd be lucky to get that kind of $ for unbroke/green horses, imo obviously.

i hope it all works out for you. it's sad to hear that this has happened to you because, again in my opinion only, there is a huge lack of good boarding options in this area. when something like this happens to makes it less and less likely that knowledgeable, responsible and qualified people will start or continue to offer boarding. :(
 
#18 ·
I would tell her she had 7 days to sign the contract. If she does not then at the next public auction they will all go. You will take your fee and the rest of the monies will go to a horse rescue charity. You have given ample notice and she is taken advantage of you. Have a notorized contract drawn up and send it by certified letter. She pretty much has abandoned the horses. I board, always make sure my board is paid on time but the boarding place has a couple of late payers and these peopel depend on the money to feed my horses. good luck.
 
#19 ·
I would tell her that due to liability issues she cannot come on the property or handle her horses without signing the afore mentioned contract. You don't want to be responsible of she or the horses hurt her, themselves, or someone else and you have no contract stating who is responsible for the damages or injuries.
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#22 ·
I would definitely make her sign a bill of sale and transfer papers on the 'good' horse that you want to trade for. That way you have it in writing for both of you that the debt is paid **up to this date** and that any future debt that she might rack up doesn't get covered by the horse you are keeping. I can see her not letting you have registration papers on the horse you're keeping, or claiming that you agreed to take the horse for boarding fees (forever). After I got that horse safely in my name, I'd work on her for the boarding agreement. If she wouldn't sign it, I'd still evict her. If she still hadn't paid board, I'd sell the other horses or do the trade again so that I had papers on the good one that I kept. At least then you would have a registered horse in your name that you could sell for more than $40.

What a mess. Good luck!
 
#23 ·
The horses should never have stepped foot on your property without her signing a contract. If you do take a horse for payment, like others have said, get a contract of the sale and papers in hand.

I guess this is a lesson learned about contracts and boarders. I didn't read all of the posts, but I believe if you sold one of her horses without her having ever signed a contract with you, you could be liable to repay her the cost of the horse should she decide to sue you. The letter you mailed to her of intent to sell may cover you, but unless she actually signed a form stating that this was a consequence of not paying for her board, I think you could get yourself in trouble. Hope that made sense.

Never, ever let anyone on your property to ride or board without a written contract to cover your butt.
 
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#24 ·
I admit I didn't go through all the responses, but, if you want to get the horses off property...work on selling the low priced ones first. The statute doesn't say how much you have to seel them for, just to sell them. The chances of meeting that 1200 balance is slim adn sicne the board contract isn/t in writing, and you are going into another month, tack on that extra month board..now she is up to 2400 and you could also add some late fees in there. Once the lower priced ones sell, then go for the higher value ones. You may get just enough to cover the back board and your efforts, make sure to add in time and effort to sell, ( set an hourly "wage"), and have all of the horses off property.

Now as a caveat, you need to check with a lawyer in this to make sure you CAN sell since no contract was written. The other option is small claims court.
 
#25 · (Edited)
The Washoe County animal control cited the owner because we could not get her to have the horses veted, shots, and hooves trimmed. Finally she had some of the horses hooves done and gave shots herself but the citation also stated to have one horse in perticular vetted within 10 days as she is deteriorating and looks like she has something going on requiring blood work, appears to be very wormy and is in need of teeth floated. She failed to comply. So I hope animal control will impound this poor horse. She looks like she migh have cushing disease. This woman thinks if she just gives her shots she's in compliance. We washed and brushed 3 of the horses today because she hardly ever comes out.

Also for whatever reason the horse that I was going to trade for board for a total of two months she has now listed him for sale on CL today http://reno.craigslist.org/grd/2957483910.html. for whatever reason she decided to sell him to someone else. I told her she is not allowed to bring potential buyers here to ride and if she sells the horse he cannot leave the property because we have a Lein on all the horses and she is only allowed to sell him if we get the money. Legally because she refuses to sign a contract and because she is so far behind on board we can lock her out. She also thinks that she should be allowed to come and go as she pleases. She is even trying to dictate to us which horses we can and can't sell at the lein sale when according to the law we can sell all of them to satisfy the amount owed and get them off the property. If there is any money left over we are to return it to her. She interprets the statute to mean that we can only sell whichever horse/s she picks and when the debt is satisfied then the auction is over and the rest of the horses she can keep...free at our place is her thinking I can only imagine.
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#26 ·
The Washoe County animal control cited the owner because we could not get her to have the horses veted, shots, and hooves trimmed. Finally she had some of the horses hooves done and gave shots herself but the citation also stated to have one horse in perticular vetted within 10 days as she is deteriorating and looks like she has something going on requiring blood work, appears to be very wormy and is in need of teeth floated. She failed to comply. So I hope animal control will impound this poor horse. She looks like she migh have cushing disease. This woman thinks if she just gives her shots she's in compliance. We washed and brushed 3 of the horses today because she hardly ever comes out.

Also for whatever reason the horse that I was going to trade for board for a total of two months she has now listed him for sale on CL today For Sale: Half-Arabian Gelding. for whatever reason she decided to sell him to someone else. I told her she is not allowed to bring potential buyers here to ride and if she sells the horse he cannot leave the property because we have a Lein on all the horses and she is only allowed to sell him if we get the money. Legally because she refuses to sign a contract and because she is so far behind on board we can lock her out. She also thinks that she should be allowed to come and go as she pleases. She is even trying to dictate to us which horses we can and can't sell at the lein sale when according to the law we can sell all of them to satisfy the amount owed and get them off the property. If there is any money left over we are to return it to her. She interprets the statute to mean that we can only sell whichever horse/s she picks and when the debt is satisfied then the auction is over and the rest of the horses she can keep...free at our place is her thinking I can only imagine.
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i figured this would happen. Or she'd show up in the middle of the night to take the horses. Seriously. Send them all to public auction and be done with it.
 
#27 ·
omg i saw those horses on craigslist and was like "wtf is this person thinking?!?". i'm so sorry that you're having to deal with this. i can't imagine she's going to get the money she's asking for either of the two horses i saw her post.

this being the other one: Half-Arabian Gelding

also - is there someone at the house/property all the time so that she can't come by whenever she feels like it and access the horses? this makes me so angry and knowing that you're also here in reno makes me want to find her and slap her. haha - entitled people upset me (obviously). if there's something i can do to help, idk how or what, but you let me know!
 
#30 ·
i'm amazed that this woman has so many horses to start with, seeing as she doesn't seem to grasp the financial and time requirements involved in horse ownership. *shakes fist*

good luck getting a brand inspector out. has she agreed to give you the one horse as payment for the back board and to then REMOVE her remaining horses from your property?
 
#33 ·
The sad part is one of the horses is a very nice 26 years sound pure Spanish arabian stallion that the boarder took in promising a nice forever home. This Stallion is so adorable and extremely gentle and has perfect ground manners. He is also to the best of my knowledge still breed able and has great feet.

Some info on the Internet about him, Older Spanish Stallion - Arabian Rescue and Rehoming - Arabian Horse Breeders Network

Ck it out his name is L Habac

Also, there's a 14 year old possible in foal Arab mare, a 22 sound possibly kids Arab gelding.

A Oldenberg rescue mare needing vet care.
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