Southern Ag Today

Author: Jesse Richardson

  • Heirs Property and Agriculture

    Heirs Property and Agriculture

    Heirs property has become an important topic in agriculture. The term “heirs property,” describes a form of ownership where at least some of the owners have acquired the property through inheritance. As the property passes down through the generations, more and more people are co-owners, making the property unmanageable. As time passes, some owners may not be able to be found or may not be known. 

    In most states all owners would have to agree to, for example, farm the property. If consensus among heirs is not reached, the on-farm heirs may not be able to obtain a farm number to participate in United States Department of Agriculture programs. When a disaster strikes and landowners seek federal or state government assistance, the inability to prove ownership or have all owners sign can bar any assistance.

    If the land is already classified as heirs property, the first task is to identify and locate all persons with an ownership interest, which can be very time-consuming and expensive. Once all owners are identified and located, the farm can be placed in a business entity like a limited liability company, or a co-tenancy agreement can be entered into for easier management. However, all owners need to agree, which can be problematic. 

    If all owners cannot be identified or located, title must be “cleared”- the proper owners must be determined. In most cases, this process involves a court case. The process of clearing title can be extremely expensive and take years to accomplish.

    Any owner of the property can also file a partition suit to have the land either physically divided among the heirs, or sold and the proceeds, after costs, divided among the heirs. As a practical matter, a partition suit most often results in sale of the property. 

    The latest Farm Bill contains two provisions to attempt to address these issues. First, the bill provides alternative ways for owners of heirs property to obtain a farm number. Second, the Farm Bill provides for a relending program where owners of heirs property can borrow money to clear title and develop business entities or other documents to manage the farm. 

    Careful estate planning can prevent your property from becoming heirs property. If you own land, consult an attorney to prevent and/or address heirs property issues.

    For more information see:

    https://www.calt.iastate.edu/article/problem-heirs-property

    https://wvleap.wvu.edu/additional-tools/highlight-heirs-property

    Richardson, Jesse. “Heirs Property and Agriculture“. Southern Ag Today 2(36.5). September 2, 2022. Permalink

  • Agrotourism and Land Use – Happily Ever After?

    Agrotourism and Land Use – Happily Ever After?

    One of the biggest trends in land use law is an increasing number of court cases and legislative battles over agritourism. The first issue surrounds the question of what activities qualify as agritourism. Second, courts, state legislatures, and local planning boards struggle to harmonize agritourism with other land uses.

     One generally thinks of agritourism as pick-your-own, hayrides, corn mazes, small farm stands, and maybe even apple cannons and punkin’ chunkers. Depending on where you live, the courts or state legislature may have determined that weddings, paintball, shooting ranges, rodeos, concerts, festivals, movies, and even skydiving constitute agritourism. Agritourism activities should also be connected to production activities on that farm.

     Most communities support agritourism as a way to help agricultural operations supplement their incomes. However, as agritourism activities increasingly involve large numbers of people and cars, increased noise, parking and traffic issues and attendees wandering onto neighboring properties, conflicts between agritourism operators and their neighbors have increased. Some of the complaining neighbors are producers that find that the cars, people and noise interfere with their production activities.

     Weddings are a prime example of a contentious agritourism activity today. Courts have struggled to determine when a wedding is sufficiently connected to the farm’s production activities to be considered “agrtourism”. Courts increasingly consult several different factors in a complex analysis to make legal decisions. Is the farm setting integral to the wedding ceremony? Are farm products such as flowers or food items used in the wedding or reception? Perhaps the wedding is agritourism, but the reception should be held elsewhere?

    Take these questions and concerns and expand them to the myriad of activities that may be considered agritourism and the difficulties are obvious. Land use impacts of production agriculture and intensive agritourism activities are very different and neighbors react accordingly. As always, agritourism operators should think about impacts to neighbors when developing new activities. Neighbors should be consulted prior to commencing the new activity. In addition, design activities to minimize impacts on nearby landowners. Agritourism operations that result in angry neighbors not only cause negative publicity for that operation, but for agritourism as a whole.

    Richardson, Jesse J.. “Agritourism and Land Use- Happily Ever After?”. Southern Ag Today 2(10.5). March 4, 2022. Permalink