Not sure I can help much, but this is what we plan to do.... We bought 20 acres of family land that's being farmed. We were advised by our local tax preparer/appraiser that when we build, we need to survey off an acre with the house and not leave the house as part of the larger tract because there is a larger tax liability for a house on 20 acres versus a house on 1 acre plus 19 acres of farmland. So, that's what we are going to look at doing. We don't want to lose the primary acreage... and this will allow us to deed the house or remaining acreage over to our son when he's older.

I would not want to be locked into a house I could not sell if necessary. Talk to a real estate attorney about the best way to proceed.

As someone from a farming family, frankly, it is not very good for the farmer if non-family move in on a corner of the family farm. Complaints about smell, noise, crop dusters, etc abound. Are you sure your farming side of the family encourages you to subdivide? I think if I were the farmer of the land, I'd not want the possibility of the non-family member living there.

I have a parcel subdivided from the family farm, it was not a complicated process. Need a good engineer and real estate attorney. However, to honor my father's wishes, he retained the right of first refusal if I would ever decide to sell...

I think what you are running up against is that some jurisdictions do not allow the subdivision of farmland in order to preserve land for farming. We came across this when we sold our last house that was on 26 acres (25 acres farmed). The county would not allow us or a buyer to subdivide a 1 acre parcel with the house from the total 26. This was because if it was allowed, then another house could be build on the remaining acreage and therefore there would be less land available for farming.

I agree with vsr61, some areas will not allow a small subdivision of land. Either check yourself or use a land use attorney to verify what/how property can be subdivided.

Can 1/4 of the property even be 'rolled over'? I'm assuming there are 4 siblings that would be the inheritors? Wouldn't doing this be sub-dividing the land into 4 and you are having difficulties sub-dividing at all?

Maybe I don't understand what "roll over" means. I took it to mean passing the family farm from the parents to an individual child so that the next generation can continue on farming the land without heavy tax implications for transferring the land. Splitting it between several children seems like chopping the land up and using much less of it for actual farming.

It gets very complicated, my husband is a real estate attorney in Texas and we had a similar situation occur with our son and DIL in Tennessee. It took several tries to find a Tennessee attorney that could draw up the necessary paperwork to satisfy everyone, but it did happen. Your best bet is a real estate attorney/elder law attorney that can advise you on all of the issues.

I think I understand the problem. My spouse and I bought 10 acres of farm land from his father many years ago. We had planned to build a house there, but it turned out, I didn't want to live in Wisconsin farmland country. We had an interested buyer and sold it. However, there were things that needed to be done to convert it from farmland to residential property...culverts and streets added, electricity and sewage, etc..... It was written into the contract for the buyers to absorb those costs.

Thank you all for your thoughts! I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

BethA - yes, your situation sounds similar to what we would like to do - keep the house separate from the farm land. Unfortunately the county we are in does not generally support this kind of subdivision :(

Homechef59 - we have an appointment with the attorney later this month. Hopefully he has some ideas :)

Anglophilia - my thoughts exactly. The more I think on it the more I agree.

kirkhall - I completely agree. And that is one of the reasons the county does not generally support subdivision. However we would be the third generation on this land and fully intend never to leave, therefore the likelihood of non-family/farming people ever living in the house is remote. But the pessimist in me likes to be prepared for the worst case scenario, so protecting my equity seems important. Ironically the older generation wishes they had thought of all these possibilities back when they were in the same situation 30 years ago. As they look to retire, their options are limited by the fact that their house and the farm are one-in-the-same. They fully support our preference to subdivide.

nycefarm - good to hear the the subdivision process was straightforward for you. Having right of first refusal or having a life estate set up is definitely on the list of questions for the attorney.

vsr61 - yes that's exactly it. They are very clear in their desire to preserve the agriculture in the area, which I completely understand. It is frustrating however when we are the third generation of family on this land and want to be there to help lighten the load for the aging generation. The same by-laws meant to protect farming are at the same time putting up roadblocks for farming families.

greg_2015 - yes, that is my definition of roll-over as well. For brevity's sake, I may not have done a good job in explaining the land situation. My in-laws own 4 quarter sections (land here is parcelled into 160 acre squares. 160 acres = 1 quarter section) of land. Their "homestead" is on one of those quarter sections. The other 3 quarter sections are undeveloped farmland. There are 3 siblings, each of whom will inherit (at least) one quarter section each. As each of the quarter sections has a separate title, no subdivision would be required to roll over one quarter section to each sibling.

susyqtexas - thank you for your insight! We are meeting with one attorney whom I hope can help us.

handmethathammer - good point, I will look into whether or not a subdivision would require or result in a change of zoning.