Best way to divide land

[dmccarty]

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.

Mark's is right on about the messes the logger can make.

With a timber sale there should be a contract between you and the logger. In NC its standard for the contract to specify that the logger can take the trees up to two years from the date the contract was signed. I sure would not want to wait two years and they cut the trees within weeks.

The flip side of that is that they have a fixed time to get the trees. If they don't come and get them apparently you get the money and the trees.

As part of the contract, the NC extension office will have examples, one of the most important items to have in the paper is that the logger will work according to the BMP, Best Management Practices. This is a small booklet that pretty much keeps the logger in line and addresses the dumping issue. The forester should also be checking the logging operation to inforce the contract. Ours came out a couple of times to check on them. It took less than a week for them to log 50ish acres. It was not clear cut.

My forester got 10%. I think I could have gotten a better price but my FIL and his friends had use the man for years and he had to drive quite a distance. He earned the money. I talked with other foresters and there ain't now way I would work with them.

Since the forester works on a percentage he wants to cut as much as possible. We withheld roughly 10-12 acres he wanted to cut but I said no. I did not want the trees cut in that area and the equipment would have made a mess. He said they grow stuborn men in Florida.

We had a closed bid auction. I tried to figure out how it could be rigged but it seemed pretty secure. The forester listed the timber for sale in various places, sent out letters to loggers in the area, and just hung a sign. Some bids where mailed to him but must showed up on the sale date. It was kinda unreal. As part of the sale loggers had a list of the cruise from the forester but they had been walking the land checking his numbers. On the day of sale we all showed up. The loggers gave us a sealed bid. We walked to the back of my truck, put down the tailgate, and started opening envolopes and reading numbers. Started sorting low to high.

High won. A lot of money was changing hands based on a process run out of the back of a truck.

Some of the bids where like 10-20 percent of the value. A couple of bids where within a few thousand dollars of each other. The winner was the logger that had a mill in town. I'm sure he could bid higher because his transportation cost would be the lowest.

A week or so later we signed the contract and I got the money. This was the biggest hiccup. The check was from a lawyer out of town and the stupid bank held the check for 10 days. I was really ticked off about the hold. We did not need the money in those 10 days but it was not right.

The extension office and/or their website can really help out a timber owner.

The wifey is a real estate broker so I asked about property being land locked. She said that the state does not allow property to be land locked and that a judge will pretty much allow an easement. It might cost though. I would also guess that at the time of the parcel creation that the land had access and it was closed off. But I think you know all of this and more.

Later,
Dan

 

[Richard]

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

You can add tire changes 'in the field' to the list, as well as taking said tire carcass and trying to HIDE it inside a 'slash pile' for future burning.

Upon my verifying with my county that burning the carcass was a big "NO NO" and that we'd be held responsible for it's disposal... I finally got the logger who said the county guy didn't know what he was talking about and it would be just ok for me to burn it.

I told him it was not going to be burnt, it was his responsiblity & I was fully prepared to pursue this further if I needed to. In fact, I DID turn him into the county guy. Ironically, the tire disappeared about 2 days later.

By the way, these tires are HUGE.

 

[dmccarty]

And the Fire Marshal nad/or the Forest Ranger folks look at the burn pile to see if there is any metal left from the carcass. If there is you be in trouble......

The tires on the equipment they used to timber our land was a good 6 feet tall. They could have run over my full size PU truck without a problem.... Not to mention that cutting head.....

Later,
Dan