Public registry of all conservation easements established
Added by SB 1360:
Public Resources Code §5096.520
Effective Date: January 1, 2007
Conservation easements held by the state will be listed in a central public registry maintained by the Secretary of the Resources Agency.
A conservation easement is any recorded document that contains any condition, covenant, easement, restriction, or offer to dedicate by the owner of the land for the purpose of maintaining land in its natural, scenic, historical, agricultural, forested, or open-space condition.
Information included with each conservation easement listed in the registry will include:
- the county recorder’s document number;
- the date the easement was recorded;
- the purpose of the easement;
- the location of the easement, identified by county and nearest city;
- the identity of the easement holder; and
- the size of the easement in acres.
This registry will be available to the public on the internet by January 1, 2009 and updated biennially.
An IRS private letter ruling confirmed a taxpayer, as the sole owner of limited liability companies, qualifies to complete a tax-free §1031 transaction by selling property owned by one of his LLCs to a cash buyer which assigns the right to acquire replacement property in lieu of cash to the taxpayer who contracts to purchase replacement property. The taxpayer then assigns this purchase right to another solely-owned LLC which acquires the replacement property. Since any LLC solely owned by a taxpayer is disregarded for tax purposes, the assets sold and acquired by the disregarded entities(LLCs) are considered the assets and transactions of the taxpayer, no differently than had the taxpayer sold property vested in his name and acquired replacement property in his name, to qualify for treatment as a tax-free §1031 transaction. [IRS Private Letter Ruling 200732012, 5-11-07]
