Vermont Land Trust - Giving Land While Continuing to Live on It

Land Gifts

An outright gift of land to Vermont Land Trust is one of the most generous legacies a landowner can leave to future generations. Throughout Vermont are farms, forests, recreation areas, scenic vistas and even affordable housing sites that communities enjoy because of the vision and generosity of earlier landowners.

Gifts of land can also provide many benefits for the donor. It is usually a relatively quick and easy legal transaction. It can:

Assure the permanent protection of a family property;
Provide a charitable income tax deduction for the full fair market value of the land;
Avoid capital gains tax on appreciated value, which would otherwise be payable if the land was sold;
Removes the property from the donor’s taxable estate;
Releases the donor from the expense and responsibility of management of the property; and
Provides long-term support for Vermont Land Trust.

When VLT receives a gift of land, it places a permanent conservation easement on the property and usually sells it, using the proceeds to build endowments and help conserve other lands in Vermont. Sometimes, when a gifted property has special attributes or is located in an established neighborhood, VLT may convey the property to the State or a town for a park or public forest or to a community land trust for affordable housing. Because VLT will incur costs in the acceptance, holding, and disposition of a gift of land (such as a title search, legal fees, staff costs, property taxes, and so forth) it has established minimum criteria for land gifts. Please contact Darby Bradley for more information about how a gift of land can benefit the donor, the Vermont Land Trust, and Vermont.

Revised 2005

The Vermont Land Trust would be happy to prepare an analysis of how a gift of land with reserved life estates might fit your particular situation. If you would like further information about remainder trusts or other forms of gift planning, please contact us.

The following documents are all in PDF format. To view PDF documents, your computer needs a program such as the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Thank you for caring about the future of Vermont.
And thank you for helping us do something positive about it!

To receive a copy of any of these materials, please contact the Montpelier office. For other questions or to learn more on how to include the Vermont Land Trust in your estate plans, contact Darby Bradley.

Vermont Land Trust
8 Bailey Avenue
Montpelier, VT 05602
Phone: 802-223-5234 | Fax: 802-223-4223
Toll-free: 1-800-639-1709