Blog by: Jordan Guancione
Reality dating shows rarely advertise themselves as legal case studies, yet the intimate relationships they depict can come with substantial legal consequences.[i] For most individuals, dating serves as a low-stakes means of exploring personal identity and broader social relationships. For families whose livelihoods are rooted in farmland, decisions regarding marriage and long-term partnership carry far greater stakes: who owns the farm, who inherits it, and who controls its future.[ii] Farmer Wants a Wife, a popular reality television series, spotlights the high stakes of relationships on family-owned farms are explored.[iii] By depicting tensions between the daily demands of agricultural labor and the uncertainties of new romantic commitments, viewers are given a first-hand look at the complex intersection between personal relationships and property law.[iv] Though the show often ends in marriage, these seemingly simple relationships can give rise to complex issues such as agricultural property division, inheritance, and long-term land operations.
Farms are not ordinary assets. In the Midwest, farmland often functions simultaneously as a home, a business, and a multigenerational resource.[v] It is, therefore, unsurprising that farm families seek to keep land ownership within the family tree. The most powerful tool for protecting inherited farms is a prenuptial agreement—a legally binding contract specifying how assets and debts will be dealt with in the event of divorce or death.[vi] Prenuptial agreements can classify the farm as separate property, specify the treatment of income, outline the handling of improvements to the land, and include provisions addressing death to ensure that the land passes to intended heirs.[vii] However, commingling marital funds for farm maintenance or joint labor can transform farmland into marital property and subject it to division upon divorce.[viii] Kentucky, like most states, follows an equitable distribution framework in divorce, under which courts divide marital property in a manner deemed fair rather than strictly equal.[ix] In practice, however, this standard often results in an approximately equal division of assets.[x]
In Kentucky this tension is especially notable. Farmland is not just an asset on a balance sheet; it represents heritage, identity, and a link between past and future generations. For these reasons, legislative reform is necessary. One promising avenue of reform is Kentucky’s adoption of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), a state bill that helps preserve family wealth passed to the next generation in the form of real property.[xi] The UPHPA is the most comprehensive reform of partition law since the 1800’s,[xii] originally drafted to stabilize tenancy-in-common ownership for disadvantaged families in response to decades of state partition laws that facilitated widespread and devastating involuntary land loss.[xiii]
The UPHPA provides inheritors with a bundle of due process protections, including notice, appraisal, right of first refusal, and a court-supervised sale, when required, to ensure all parties receive a fair share of the proceeds if the other cotenants choose not to exercise their right.[xiv] As of January 6, 2026, Kentucky Senate Bill 23, which would enact the UPHPA, was introduced in the Kentucky Senate and referred to the Committee on Committees.[xv] Today, 24 states have enacted the UPHPA.[xvi]
States that have enacted the UPHPA have seen changes to help heirs’ property owners through three main provisions.[xvii] First, the buyout provision allows heirs’ property owners to purchase the shares of any cotenants who requested a partition by sale, giving them a way to retain ownership of the property.[xviii] Second, if a buyout does not remedy the partition, the UPHPA strengthens the preference for physically dividing the property rather than defaulting to a partition by sale, as is common in many states.[xix] Third, while acknowledging that a partition by sale may sometimes be the most equitable remedy, the UPHPA would ensure that any sale is structured to maximize the financial return for heirs, helping families preserve as much of their property wealth as possible.[xx] In Kentucky, where farmland is often passed down through generations, these reforms would provide meaningful protection for inherited agricultural land. Given the UPHPA’s remarkable success in protecting vulnerable landowners and preserving generational wealth,[xxi] Kentucky should act swiftly to advance and pass this legislation.
While Farmer Wants a Wife presents marriage as a personal happy ending, the law determines whether that ending also preserves the farm itself. Changes to the current legal landscape are essential to ensure that love does not unintentionally cost farmers their land. Absent reform, Farmer Wants a Wife may need a re-boot as Farmer Wants an Attorney.
[i] See Shayna Toh, Love Is Blind? Read Your Contract, Harv. J. Sports & Ent. L. (Oct. 31, 2024), https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jsel/2024/10/love-is-blind-read-your-contract/ [https://perma.cc/NQ4T-YDBE].
[ii] Will McKinley, Protect Your Family Farm with a Prenup, Farm Progress (July 16, 2025), https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business-planning/protect-your-family-farm-prenups-and-state-laws-key-to-preserving-agricultural-legacy/ [https://perma.cc/CSG8-HSR9].
[iii] Anya Petrone Slepyan, Reality TV Returns to Rural America for ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ on FOX & Hulu, The Daily Yonder (June 29, 2023), https://dailyyonder.com/reality-tv-returns-to-rural-america-for-farmer-wants-a-wife-on-fox-hulu/2023/06/29/ [https://perma.cc/54H7-EWSV].
[iv] Id.
[v] See Farms, Family, and Fairness: How Farm Divorces Will Shape Ag Businesses in 2026, Rincker Law PLLC, (Dec. 2, 2025), https://rinckerlaw.com/farms-family-and-fairness-how-farm-divorces-will-shape-ag-businesses-in-2026 [https://perma.cc/B4X4-US9S].
[vi] McKinley, supra note ii; Anne W. Coventry & Natalie M. Perry, What is a Prenuptial Agreement?, Am. Coll. Of Tr. & Est. Couns., https://www.actec.org/resource-center/video/what-is-a-prenuptial-agreement/ [https://perma.cc/M2VY-Y2ZA].
[vii] McKinley, supra note ii.
[viii] Id.
[ix] Equitable Distribution Legal FAQ’s, Justia, https://www.justia.com/family/divorce/docs/equitable-distribution-faq/#q8 [https://perma.cc/QTG2-J2QC].
[x] Id.
[xi] Partition of Heirs Property Act, Unif. L. Comm’n. (last visited Feb. 5, 2026), https://www.uniformlaws.org/committees/community-home?CommunityKey=50724584-e808-4255-bc5d-8ea4e588371d [https://perma.cc/MK7S-XPKB].
[xii] Thomas W. Mitchell, Historic Partition Law Reform: A Game Changer for Heirs’ Property Owners, Tex. A&M Univ. Sch. of Law Legal Stud. Rsch. Paper No. 19-27, 65, 72 (2019).
[xiii]Thomas W. Mitchell, Restoring Hope for Heirs Property Owners: The Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, 40 St. & Loc. L. News 6 (2016).
[xiv] Supra note xi.
[xv] S. 23, 2026 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ky. 2026).
[xvi] Supra note xi.
[xvii] Mitchell, supra note xii, at 73.
[xviii] Id.
[xix] Id.
[xx] Id. at 74.
[xxi] Id. at 76.