Best way to divide land

[Richard]

I'm not an attorney nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night, so with that out of the way.

Single ownership is certainly a great goal. Maybe not always do-able. cutting into parcels might or might not leave someone thinking..."he/she got the better part"

(as point of history, I'm on 250 acres with Father in law. Farm is owned 4/9 by him, 4/9 by his sister and 1/9 by his OTHER sister... the OTHER sister has passed and her 1/9 now belongs to her 4 kids, further complicating things)

I took him to an estate attorney and ONE idea he came up with was creating a family limited partnership. Each family then creates a living trust and the partnership shares go into it.

There would be voting shares (in case FIL decided to sell the entire farm) and NON voting shares.

The attorney was going to make (I'm making this number up) one million NON-voting shares so the FIL and Uncle in law could GIFT away ownership of the land if they wanted. By having sufficient shares, each share would be under the gift limitations.

Since these were nonvoting shares, they ALL could be given away, but if FIL decided to sell the land, he could do so but the proceeds would follow the share owners.

By doing this, the covenants could have some bylaws in them, such as (see other threads) NO 4-wheelers, NO (insert activity). Also, if someone wanted to sell some of their shares, they could be required to offer them to the family members FIRST, before selling them to an 'outsider' (thereby helping to force consolidation)

As a side note, when this generation passes, it will go from 3 owners (4/9, 4/9, 1/9) to TWELVE owners.

This does not include spouses so it could get real interesting (pain in hiney) real fast.

I was urging FIL to pursue this plan of action, even to the point of me PAYING for it. He had nothing to lose really. Oh, it would also have had the benefit of getting any FUTURE growth of value, out of his estate and that growth would be in the trust.

So many good points.

I've got ZERO idea why he continues to stick his head in the sand and think it will go awah. HE is the one that will 'go away' (when his time comes) and the problem will simply get worse.

So, you might be able to keep the property as a single unit, which ought to enhance its resale value later on if so decided???

None of the above was legal advice, medical advice, nor astrology advice

Good luck with what ever road you choose.

 

[rox]

It is situations descibed above that in the old days, farms were not spilt up but simply willed to the oldest son. Farms were not big enough to support two families so the oldest son generally got everything. Kind of a winner take all type of plan.

Curly dave beat me to the punch, it is jsut like having one candy bar and 2 kids, one divides and the other picks. In fact my hsuband and his former partner did the exact same thing when they split up. there were two restaurants one larger than the other, one almost paid off one still had a nomimal mortgage. One Served banquests, weddings etc, and the other didn't. They went back and forth and back and forth finally my husband said, look I'll come up with a fair division and then you can pick which restaurant you want. He agonized over it, but then finally came up with the numbers and his partner picked. Done deal, over and done with, no hard feelings.

So just to re-inforce what Dave has suggested, this is really a doable solution. AND important, it is up to each of you to make your own seperate investigations. It should not be that one of you gets all the estimated fair market values of land and timer etc. Each of you msut do this independently, therefor you are each relying on your own research, and her are no incrimations back and forth later.

I wholeheartedly encourage oyu to split the land now, seperate ownership, get it over and done with. One divides and one picks each relying on yoru own research and investigations is the best and most practicle approach. At the time of the division, it would be best to get this signed in writing that each of you made your decision based on your own independent reseach and investigation. It can be sone, my husband did it and it really only took a couple weeks of agonizing deliberation for him to come up with the numbers and just about a week for his former partner to make his decision. This really does work.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Thanks for all the replys and your thoughts.

We at this time are not interested in selling the property just want a good and fair way to divided. Need to get the right-of -way settled first.

I just know at some point it will need to be divided and want to get my "ducks in a row" beforehand.

Someone said something about future wives and husbands. This is a concern since I feel certain once my B-I-L's daughter gets the land she will want to sell. And I don't want my son to have to deal with this, so thats why we want to take steps to divide in the next couple of years.

We will keep our half and give to our son or sell for retirement, and may even look at selling home sites.

I was just wanting to see if anyone had divided a large tract of land and how they did it. If it was farm land consisting of fields it would be easy. But wooded mountainous land it a little harder to divide.

I do agree that it would be best for one to buy the other out but that won't happen. It may work out that we keep it as one large tract but I feel fairly certain at some point we will have to divide. Just for the simple fact of difference of what to do with the land. One wants to rent it to a hunting club, one does not. One want to sell some timber, one does not.

When the process starts I'll let you know what we decide.

Thanks to all again for your input!

 

[rvaitor]

Thanks for all the replys and your thoughts.

We at this time are not interested in selling the property just want a good and fair way to divided. Need to get the right-of -way settled first.

I just know at some point it will need to be divided and want to get my "ducks in a row" beforehand.

Someone said something about future wives and husbands. This is a concern since I feel certain once my B-I-L's daughter gets the land she will want to sell. And I don't want my son to have to deal with this, so thats why we want to take steps to divide in the next couple of years.

We will keep our half and give to our son or sell for retirement, and may even look at selling home sites.

I was just wanting to see if anyone had divided a large tract of land and how they did it. If it was farm land consisting of fields it would be easy. But wooded mountainous land it a little harder to divide.

I do agree that it would be best for one to buy the other out but that won't happen. It may work out that we keep it as one large tract but I feel fairly certain at some point we will have to divide. Just for the simple fact of difference of what to do with the land. One wants to rent it to a hunting club, one does not. One want to sell some timber, one does not.

When the process starts I'll let you know what we decide.

Thanks to all again for your input!

Can't remember where you are but I regularly go to the Morganton area and often fly in - could probably help you get some pics but the county I am in has a GREAT GIS site with excellent arials that can be sized specifically to your property.

I also have used a forester over there that I trust and think does a good job - we've struggled with whether to sell the timber - realistically you really need to harvest it at some point because it grows at a slower rate and has other issues as it ages - the NC Forestry service is also and exceptional resource.

 

[tallyho8]

We at this time are not interested in selling the property just want a good and fair way to divided. Need to get the right-of -way settled first.

This is another problem in dividing. Because you have to have the right of way go to both pieces of land and it is best if it does not have an easement through one piece to go to the other piece.

 

[dmccarty]

HunterRidge,

I'm in NC and sold the timber on our land as soon as we bought the land.

The NC Extension office has a class for Timber Landowners. If you don't know anything about owning Timber I highly recommend the class. There is also a text book online I think out of Purdue written by the guys who where part of the team that wrote the timber tax laws in the 40's. Highly recommended.

Get a forester out on the land now to cruise the trees. A cruise provides an inventory of the timber on the land. You need this right now to determine you basis for any future timber sales. I remember there being discussions on timber taxes/basis when inheriting the land but I don't remember the details since it was not pertanent to my situation.

The basis can be determined in the future by coring the trees and looking at growth rates since change of ownership. The state keeps a record of tree growth by region to help this determination. But the "book" said the best thing to do was to cruise the land during the year of purchase to establish the basis.

The extension office should have a list of local foresters as well. I interviewed a couple but ended up using a guy my FIL had used. The forester had to travel almost two hours to get to us but he made money and we made money.

Whatever you do don't sell timber without a cruise. Its amazing how many people get ripped off selling timber. The logger knocks on the door and says I'll give you 20K for those trees. The owner thinks they are getting a deal but the trees are likely worth two or three times more. The forester provides the inventory and a guestimate of value if sold.

NC has a 800 number you can call the provides timber prices for hardwood/softwood by region from the last quarter. While the market can change it at least tells the owner a market price.

Establish clear ownership to the land. Its just gets messy when one person wants to sell and the other don't. As the land gets owned by more and more people it just gets ugly.

Later,
Dan

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Can't remember where you are but I regularly go to the Morganton area and often fly in - could probably help you get some pics but the county I am in has a GREAT GIS site with excellent arials that can be sized specifically to your property.

I also have used a forester over there that I trust and think does a good job - we've struggled with whether to sell the timber - realistically you really need to harvest it at some point because it grows at a slower rate and has other issues as it ages - the NC Forestry service is also and exceptional resource.

That is where I got my arial view from, County GIS. 2.5'x3-4'. Excellent quality.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

HunterRidge,

Get a forester out on the land now to cruise the trees.

Later,
Dan

Dan,

Can't get to the land. Cart paths were blocked years ago to prevent access and force sale. No one acted at that time, but now that we have the land we are moving forward for right-of-way. This one could get very interesting! I'll post about it when its all over.
Should know in the next month or two.

 

[tbaiely]

since i am in the surveying business i have seen this more than a few times there are two ways to handle it in my opinion first and formost have the property surveyed and property lines marked, then have the timber cut from the property use this money to pay for sirveying fees and divide the rest of the money between all parties invloved! ps this may not be alot of money depending on what kind of timber is on the property, and you will have to pay income taxes on this money also! then all parties involved look at the property after it is cleared and pick the areas they want/like and mark it and have the surveyor draw some preliminary maps showing the division on paper and mark the lines on the ground that way everybody sees what they are agreeing to on the ground! second way is to just sell out to one party and let them worry about it and go buy some land some where else
sorry for the long post!

 

[MarkV]

Whatever you do don't sell timber without a cruise. Its amazing how many people get ripped off selling timber. The logger knocks on the door and says I'll give you 20K for those trees. The owner thinks they are getting a deal but the trees are likely worth two or three times more. The forester provides the inventory and a guestimate of value if sold.

That is real good advice in my opinion. The first year on our property we had loggers stopping by about every month until the word was out that we were not naïve enough to sell without professional help.

Also carefully check out the forester you use. Here if you use one to handle the whole deal they arrange for the cutting and selling of the timber for a percentage. It is to their advantage to cut as much as possible even if that is not what you want. Be real clear in a written contract as to what you expect from the logger also. There are terrible stories of the messes they can make and things like hundreds of gallons of hydraulic fluid and oil being dumped to change fluids in the field.

MarkV