A Solar Land Lease Letter to Landowners, Rewritten Line by Line

Your letter lands on a kitchen table next to the power bill and a seed catalog. The owner gives it about as long as it takes to walk from the mailbox to the trash can.

Ohio State University Extension's guide to solar leasing describes the usual first contact almost word for word. A letter says a developer is looking for land for a solar project, and gives a phone number to call. That's the letter most landowners have already seen, often more than once.

Below is one of those letters. It's a composite, pieced together from the kind of letter landowners receive. It isn't any real developer's letter and it doesn't quote any company. If a line looks familiar, that's the point.

The letter as most landowners get it

Dear Landowner,

[Developer Name] is a leading developer of utility-scale solar energy projects, committed to building a clean energy future for communities across the region.

We are currently evaluating properties in your area for a potential solar energy facility, and your property has been identified as a potential candidate.

[Developer Name] offers competitive lease rates and is interested in discussing a long-term lease or option agreement for all or a portion of your property. Under a typical agreement, the Landowner (hereinafter "Lessor") grants the Lessee an exclusive option, together with access and utility easements.

Our facilities are quiet, safe and non-polluting, with minimal visual impact.

If you are interested in learning more about this exciting opportunity, please contact our Land Acquisition Department at the number below or visit our website.

Sincerely,

The Land Acquisition Team

[Developer Name] LLC, [main office line]

There's nothing false or rude in it, and almost nobody answers it.

What each line costs you

1. "Dear Landowner"

This one is covered in our post on mailer response rates, so briefly: a letter to "Landowner" went to a thousand people, and the reader knows it before the second line.

Use the name on the deed. If the deed names an LLC or a trust, use the name of the person behind it. That's slower work, and it pays more than anything else in the letter.

Rewrite: Dear [owner's first name],

2. "A leading developer, committed to a clean energy future"

Every company says this about itself. The owner can't check it and has no reason to care.

What he does care about is who is writing to him. The Ohio State guide tells landowners to find out whether they're dealing with the developer or with a land broker assembling parcels to sell on. Your letter can settle that in one plain line.

Say what your company does, in the words a neighbor would use. You build solar farms. You rent the ground they sit on. He keeps the land.

That plain reason matters for another reason too. A big number with no why behind it reads like a scam. "We build solar farms and pay rent for the ground" is the why.

Rewrite: I work for [Developer Name]. We build solar farms and pay landowners rent for the ground they sit on. You keep ownership of the land.

3. "Properties in your area" and "a potential candidate"

"Your area" could be anywhere. "A potential candidate" is form-letter language, and the owner hears it that way.

Name the parcel. Acreage, road, county, parcel number. A letter that names his road and his acreage reads like it was written for him. He can tell in two seconds it didn't go to the whole county.

Then give him the one real reason his land made the list. Usually that's the power line or the substation nearby. It's true, it's specific, and it answers the question he's already asking: why me?

Rewrite: It's parcel [parcel ID] in [county] County, right by the power line that runs along [road or landmark]. Land that close to a line is hard to find.

4. "Competitive lease rates"

Start with the cost, because it's real. Put a range in writing and some owners will quote the top of it back to you on the first call. You give up a little room.

Put it in anyway.

"Competitive" tells the owner nothing he can take to his family or his accountant. And he is going to find a number whether you give him one or not. "How much does a solar lease pay per acre?" is one of the questions Google suggests to people searching about solar leases. The National Agricultural Law Center notes that many solar contracts pay on a per acre per year basis. If your letter stays quiet on money, the internet fills in the number for you, and it may be someone else's.

So lead with it. Money goes in the first line, not the fourth paragraph. Use a range, not a single figure. A range gives you room to move up and close. A single number reads like a final offer, and a final offer invites a no.

Rewrite: Your [acreage] acres on [road name] could earn [your range per acre] per acre every year as a solar lease.

5. The legal sentence

Words like "option agreement," "easement" and "hereinafter Lessor" belong in the letter of intent and the lease. In a first letter they do real damage.

The same Ohio State guide warns landowners that signing a document that asks for a signature and offers money may bind them to a legal agreement, and tells them to talk with an attorney before they sign anything a developer sends. That's good advice for an owner. It also means a first letter that reads like a contract gets treated like one. It goes in a drawer until he has time to call a lawyer, and plenty of owners never make time for a letter they didn't ask for.

Cut the whole sentence. The owner hasn't said he's interested yet. There's nothing to define.

Rewrite: nothing. The sentence goes.

6. "Quiet, safe and non-polluting"

This line tries to answer a worry. The trouble is that the owner didn't have the worry until you raised it. Now he is picturing noise he had never thought about.

Show the scene instead and let him draw his own picture. The panels sit on part of the land. He keeps the rest and uses it the way he does now.

If an owner asks about noise or looks, answer him then, in the conversation. That's where the question belongs.

Rewrite: The panels would only use part of your land. The rest stays yours to farm, graze or hunt, same as now.

7. "Contact our Land Acquisition Department or visit our website"

This asks the owner to do the most work at the moment he cares the least: call a department, read a website, and work out what to ask.

Give him one easy question instead, one he can answer with a single word. Skip the call request and the meeting. Ask about his land, with the money already on the table.

Rewrite: Would you be open to leasing part of it, if the number was right? A one-word answer by text or call is plenty.

8. "The Land Acquisition Team" and a main office line

People answer people. A team has no face, and a main office line means a phone tree.

Sign it with a real person's name, a job title in plain words, and a direct number that person picks up. When the owner calls back on a Saturday morning, the voice on the other end should be the name at the bottom of the letter.

Rewrite: [Your name], [plain title, like land manager], [Developer Name]. Cell: [direct number]

The rewritten letter

Here's the whole letter, start to finish. Every bracket is yours to fill. The money range is a placeholder on purpose. Use your real terms for that county, not a number from a blog.

Dear [owner's first name],

Your [acreage] acres on [road name] could earn [your range per acre] per acre every year as a solar lease.

It's parcel [parcel ID] in [county] County, right by the power line that runs along [road or landmark]. Land that close to a line is hard to find.

I work for [Developer Name]. We build solar farms and pay landowners rent for the ground they sit on. You keep ownership of the land. The panels would only use part of it, and the rest stays yours to farm, graze or hunt, same as now.

Would you be open to leasing part of it, if the number was right? A one-word answer by text or call is plenty.

[Your name]

[Plain title, like land manager], [Developer Name]

Cell: [direct number]

It's less than half the length of the original. The owner knows what he could earn before he finishes the first sentence, and he knows it's about his land, not land in general. Replying costs him one word.

What the best letter still can't fix

We write to landowners every week, mostly by email, and these are the rules that hold up. On one campaign for a developer in Georgia, 1 in 9 parcels wanted to talk about a lease. Across six campaigns, 214 parcels did.

But a letter only works on the owner it reaches. When the address on file is ten years stale, when the envelope goes to an LLC's registered agent, when the owner on the deed has died, the best letter ever written still lands on the wrong kitchen table.

You don't have a land problem. You have a contact problem. The owners who would sign are already on your list, and a better letter is only half of reaching them.

If you want your own letter read this way, send it over. We'll mark it up line by line, the same as above.