ORIGINAL: Hossfly

Plumberdeluxe, I will offer these thoughts simply to inform you of a case history. Background information strictly to use as You may see fit.
I fully owned a 100 acre flat farmland property held in a self-directed Trust. 13 years ago, I leased 30 acres to a club. 2 years later the club purchased the 30 acres at the price I had originally paid for it and I held the mortgage, originally at 6% for 5 years then to an annual interest of Prime-1, based on the Sep. yearly prime. Therefore I was simply a club member with no real say in how they managed it, except for some deed restrictions that I levied such as no flight patterns over the adjoining highway, no full-scale aircraft operations without specific permission from me one-on-one, AMA Charter with my Trust account as an insured, and a couple minor safety operations. For about 8 years things were fine.
Then a group of buddies joined the club and things have never been the same. They quickly jumped in and became the Board for the club. The club became their private flying site with 100 others paying the dues. For the past 4 years the club has been in membership decline. Now mind you this club enjoyed 5000 sq. ft. of steel over concrete shelter, water, electricity, and indoor toilets with a large kitchen area, along with paid mowing. The surrounding 70 acres were leased to a Hay farmer, along with 25 of the club's 30 acres which kept most taxes in agriculture, with no upkeep on either of our parts.

2&a1/2 years ago I was offered an attractive price for 20 acres adjoining the 30 acres all with highway frontage. I informed the Board that I was in a position to earn a neat profit, that if they wanted the 20 acres it was theirs for 70% of the offered price. The Board would not even bring the item before the club for discussion. Things got really tense. Finally I forced the issue, making myself a kind of enemy of most of that faction of the club. The club came up with a new "banker", paid me off, bought the 20 acres and the new banker really took them to the cleaners by manipulating both notes into one which gave him 50% of the equity in their old purchase.
This past fall, "Ike" traveled through, demolished all the shelter except the kitchen. In Nov. the club authorized $15,000 to rebuild the shelter. The Pres. in early Dec. gave a contractor $13,000 up front for a shelter to be done before Christmas. In Houston, TX, giving a contractor cash-up-front is about the same as using it for toilet paper. No shelter, no contractor efforts as of this past Wed.
Of course there was no insurance on the buildings.

Enough of that. All I do say is that if you own property and allow flying then YOU are the boss. If you try to be nice and allow a club to do something for themselves, then you may well be forced into an unpleasant situation. To protect yourself, I do suggest you be all business in dealing with toy-airplane folks and no matter what you give, most will not think it is anywhere enough.