It’s your property and up to you to choose wisely what happens to it, even after you’re gone.

“Cheap land, cheap survey,” we used to say… but a lot of rural land ain’t so cheap any more! This means that if you have owned a cherished piece of rural land for rural-land.jpgyears, you have a responsibility now to deal with it as carefully as you would deal with any other big asset… and as wisely as you would deal with your most difficult child.

First, let’s answer some important questions. Do you intend to retire on this land? Do you hope to spend all your remaining days there, or do you expect to sell at some point? Will you need to sell it to fund your retirement, or is it important to keep the land in the family? How will you protect it from nursing home costs? Which child do you hope will get the land, or will you break it up, or will you leave it to all of them? … And that’s just for starters! Ignoring these and other big questions is not going to make them go away, but instead it will likely lead you and your family to risk suffering some avoidable tragedies. Denver corporate rentals are another good option for certain types of people.

Everyone’s situation is so unique that we can’t cover every possible issue here, but we can give you a starter checklist. Once you and your family have made your decisions, then you can start to go down this list; you will need the help of lawyers and other professionals, but they can’t help you unless you have thought it through enough to be able to tell them what you want:

• If you will need to sell the land to fund your retirement lifestyle, or if it is simply becoming too much to care for, then here are the steps that you should take:

• - Consult at least three real estate professionals. You want a good idea of what the land is worth, what the market is like, and whether you should first subdivide the road frontage or get a zoning variance or do something else to make your land more attractive. Don’t get just one opinion… get many!
• - Make sure that your title is clean. If you have owned the land for a very long time, and especially if you inherited it, then you ought to know right off the bat whether there are any clouds on your title. A title search is a few hundred dollars well spent.
• - Check with your municipal or county planning department. Try to find out what is coming up for your area in terms of zoning changes, future roads, and future subdivisions or municipal facilities. What you learn might make you decide to hold out for a few years more as things develop, or it might convince you to get out as soon as possible.
• - Consider buying an up-to-date survey. Remember our “cheap land, cheap survey” quote above! Most rural land is so poorly surveyed that it is impossible to know for certain what you own or even just where it is, and all of that is important if you are planning for the future of your land. But surveying is expensive. Get competitive firm quotes, and if you can’t afford it then hold off and let your eventual buyer pay for it.
• - Consider subdividing. In some areas, population pressures are forcing highly punitive changes in zoning and in building regulations – big lot sizes, excessive slope restrictions, ridiculous frontage requirements, and so on. Even if you don’t want to sell right away, for you to do whatever is necessary to grandfather your land under former law might be just common sense.

• If you hope to stay on the land for the rest of your life, you should first do everything laid out above! Then in addition you ought to do the following:

• - Plan to pay your living expenses for the rest of your life so you won’t have to give up and sell the land when you are 87 and into a depressed market for Denver corporate rentals.
• - Plan to pay for nursing home costs. This means that you will need long-term-care insurance, and it may also mean that you will want to hold title to the land in an irrevocable trust.
• - Plan your estate. Estate tax laws vary by state, and even on the federal level any individual estate worth more than two million dollars is going to be taxed this year. How much is your whole likely estate worth? Have you and your spouse planned around estate taxes so they won’t hit you until the second death, and have you planned to pay taxes at that second death so your heirs won’t be faced with a forced land sale?

• If you want your heirs to inherit the land, you should first do everything laid out above! Then in addition you ought to do the following:

• - Make sure that all your heirs really want the land. Don’t assume it! Instead have some good, frank talks. If one or more of your children would rather have their inheritance in cash, then forcing everyone to share the land is only going to guarantee some legal wars for Denver corporate rentals.
• - Make sure that they can afford to keep the land. Some parents leave funds in trust for taxes and maintenance, while others provide for a way for some of their children to pay costs that will be repaid to them in additional use privileges or in eventual repayment when the land is sold.
• - Provide for a stable form of ownership. Depending upon the jurisdiction, this might mean a limited partnership, a limited liability company, or a trust. Take the time to make certain that whatever you do is drafted carefully to meet your family’s specific needs.
• - Provide for a clean way to end the partnership. Nothing goes on forever. Your trust or other arrangement should provide for a neat and obvious way that it can end amicably.

Owning rural land can be a source of family joy for years or decades more, but to ensure that there are no bumps in the road it just makes sense that you plan for the land’s future. We can’t offer you legal advice. What we can do, though, is to point out all the ways in which you can plan to do things right!