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Preparing for the Next Owner
| Name | Howard Hiller | | Situation | Oconee county forestry is big business. We have approximately thirty-three hundred forest landowners who own 73 percent of the total forest land in the county. We have a delivered value of timber of over seventeen million dollars, which places us 26th out of 46 counties in South Carolina. As with much of our agricultural industry, a high percent of our private forest landowners are senior citizens. Many have plans to pass their land on to heirs, but with such a complex issue most do not know how or where to start the process. With the area's rapidly
increasing land prices, many landowners are rich on paper and estate taxes are becoming an issue. Many are beginning to realize that passing their property on to their heirs is going to take a lot of thought, planning and help from experts. | | Response | Extension foresters in the southern region put together a three-night program addressing this issue. They titled the series "Preparing For The Next Owner". This program was offered to many states over ETV and other methods and was broadcast from Clemson. I agreed to be site coordinator and advertised this program to our landowners in the Anderson, Oconee and Pickens areas. Instructors included an estate planner, conservation easement expert, charitable giving specialist and an intergenerational transfer specialist. The program was designed to cover certain subjects and then participants would have take home or classroom work to complete to get them thinking about and beginning the process of passing the property to their next generation. | | Impact | We had ten landowners participate. These landowners owned over 3000 acres of land, of which 2502 acres was in timber. The property had been in the family from 30 to 130 years. Age range of participants was from 56 to 75 years. Fifty percent already had a will. Participants expected to save from $50,000 to $250,000 dollars as a result of taking this course. Participants rated their knowledge on this subject before the program as poor, fair to average and all rated their knowledge as good after the program. One hundred percent of the class participants stated that this course would lead them to make changes in their planning for
the next owner. |
Last update4/7/2008
This website is maintained by D Jason Caudill.
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