An easement is when you give/sell some of your rights to your property. If you own a tract, you can log it, mine it, hunt it, build on it, subdivide it, etc. When you put a tract in a conservation easement, for a tax break or, payment, you give away some of those rights. To stand up to IRS scrutiny, what you donate must be realistic. The diamond mining rights to a 30 acre tract in Shelby county don't have any real value. Neither do the rights to build new Highland Lakes type community on a landlocked tract in, say, Sumter County. The value must also be thoroughly documented, by a "before and after" appraisal. I have seen landowners tie up tracts in conservation easements, then go back to the bank and try to refinance at the pre-easement value. Uh, no. You gave some of that value away for a tax break, remember? The short version is - There ain't no free lunch. And there are some groups, including the brokers/sellers, the appraisers, AND THE INVESTORS tied up with the IRS filing for "clawbacks" of claimed tax breaks on some of these deals.
