Kofu - Unfortunately, your poll, being on a beekeeping forum, understandably only queries the beekeeper half of the equation and leaves out the landowner. I think the landowner's opinion is the more important one since he controls the access.
Most of the beekeepers I know with outyards prefer not to have a written contract. But when the landowner or organization that wants bees also wants a contract, I'm wondering how to set it up and what to include.
Also, of the respondants, I wonder how many actually do have hives on other people's land, as opposed to those who are just speculating on how they would like to do it if they were to do it. I ask this question because hardly anyone on this forum who keeps bees on other people's property ever mentions that they have a written agreement to do so, let alone actually require a written agreement.
The poll results fit with my general impression from other threads in this forum (which seems to differ from your impression), that many of the more business-minded beekeepers here actually do insist on having a contract. So I think they're the ones who voted. And the results may be skewed if a lot of respondents provide pollination services where a contract is (I think) generally standard practice. But it's not a scientific poll, just food for thought and perhaps further discussion. I'll post another poll, maybe next week, about specific provisions that beekeepers either would want to include or find it necessary to include.
I think it will be very interesting to hear how many landowners respond positively once you get your contract finalized and start to use it.
The objective here is really NOT to have ONE standard contract that a beekeeper asks the landowner to sign. But if the topic comes up, this conversation helps me to understand what's involved and how a piece of paper might be helpful, if someone thinks it's needed. If so, then the beekeeper and the landowner can try to put something together -- hopefully something fairly simple, just covering the basics that it helps to have written down.
So for example, from my perspective having looked at a bunch of contracts already, if someone says there has to be a "hold harmless" clause, I'm the one who'll walk away. As best as I can tell, that sort of language is just begging for a lawsuit.
On the other hand, a contract that someone in my beek association is using has two separate clauses, a release from liability and an indemnity clause, both of which I'm guessing were suggested by a lawyer on the board of the nonprofit, both of which boil down to preventing the beekeeper from suing the board if the beekeeper gets hurt while on the premises. If it were me, I might be reluctant to sign it, but maybe it's not too much for that group to ask. The funny thing is that on facebook they're boasting about how "our bees" are doing, now that it's spring.
So the whole thing is sort of a mix & match. Not a piece of paper that I bring to wave in the landowner's face and ask them to sign.