Vermont Memorandum of Lease (Two Individual Lessors)

This form prepares a Vermont memorandum of lease for a lease made by two individual lessors to one lessee, with a signature line and a separate acknowledgment certificate for each of the three parties. It is the recorded companion of a lease signed by two co-owners, two siblings who inherited land together, two joint owners of a commercial building, or a married couple leasing property they own, where all three parties execute and acknowledge the recorded notice.

Notice in the land records without the lease itself

Vermont law gives long leases real recording stakes. Under 27 V.S.A. 342, a lease for more than one year is not effectual to hold the leased estate against anyone but the lessor and the lessor's heirs unless it is acknowledged and recorded. Recording the entire lease puts every business term on the public record. The alternative the statute supplies is 27 V.S.A. 341(c): a recorded notice or memorandum of lease containing a defined list of items, so the record shows the lease and its essential terms while the rent, the operating covenants, and the rest of the contract stay private.

The statutory checklist, section by section

Section 341(c) states what the recorded memorandum contains, and the form's numbered sections track that list: the names of the parties, the date the lease was executed, the term, the description of the leased property, all rights of extension or renewal, rights of purchase or first refusal, restrictions on assignment, the addresses set forth in the lease, and the location of the original lease. The operative section then gives notice of the lease, ties each statutory item to its numbered section, and states that the lease controls wherever the memorandum and the lease differ, so the summary can never quietly amend the contract it summarizes.

Three signers, three certificates

The statute has the parties to the lease execute and acknowledge the memorandum, so this form carries signature blocks for both lessors and the lessee, each with a printed name line for the clerk's index, and a separate notary certificate for each signer. The separate certificates let the parties acknowledge on different dates or before different notaries, including notaries of other states; in the completed example, the two lessors acknowledge together in Chittenden County and the lessee acknowledges before a different notary four days later. Where the leased land includes a married owner's homestead, Vermont's joinder statutes contemplate both spouses signing the conveyance, and the two-lessor configuration carries both signatures on its face.

Recording in a town-record state

Vermont records land instruments with the clerk of the town or city where the land lies; there is no county recording system. The statewide fee is fifteen dollars per page under 32 V.S.A. 1671. One Vermont wrinkle is worth knowing at the counter: the property transfer tax definitions expressly include a memorandum of lease among the writings that can count as a deed, and a lease of 50 years or more, a shorter lease whose renewals can reach 50 years, or a shorter lease granting both a purchase right and a right to construct improvements is treated as a transfer of title that takes a Property Transfer Tax Return before the clerk records the instrument. A memorandum of an ordinary shorter lease, like the ten year farm lease in the completed example, records without a return, and the guide walks through the distinction.

What the package prepares

The memorandum is formatted for Vermont recording practice: letter size pages well inside the 32 V.S.A. 1671 page definition, 10 point body text above the statutory eight point minimum, reserved space at the top of page one for the clerk's recording information, and printed name lines under every signature. The download includes the blank memorandum as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing the entire document filled in for a realistic Chittenden County fact pattern, and a plain language guide that walks through every numbered section, the signing formalities, and the recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; a Vermont attorney can address how these statutes operate on a specific lease.