Bankruptcies, divorce and death — all claims against 17-year-old conservation easement program

    For those considering a program that some landowners claim has led to bankruptcies, divorces and death, Republican Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan has some advice: “buyer beware.”
    Becker and Rep. Kimmi Lewis of Kim will attempt this week to fix one of the problems with the state’s controversial conservation easement program.
    The 17-year-old program has been in trouble for more than a decade. Landowners who donated land under the program, and expected tax credits in return, claim they have been cheated by the Department of Revenue.
    The two lawmakers set out to fix some of the problems with HB17-1066 but almost immediately ran into resistance from the attorney general’s office, which says some of what’s proposed in the bill may be unconstitutional.
    The program works like this: Landowners contract with a land trust, usually nonprofit organizations that seek to conserve and protect land. The land trust holds the deed to the property, although the landowner still technically owns it.
    The benefit of such an arrangement is that the land is supposed to remain pristine. There shouldn’t be any housing projects, oil and gas wells, solar or wind power, or any other kind of development. The landowner keeps the land for limited use, such as growing crops or grazing cattle.
    The property proposed for the easement is evaluated by an appraiser certified by the state Division of Real Estate. Once that appraisal is accepted by the division, the landowner receives a tax credit from the Department of Revenue that can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. That tax credit is submitted with the landowner’s income tax filing April 15.
    Once the tax credits are awarded, the farmer or rancher can sell them to anyone, and many have, for around 75 cents on the dollar. Farmers and ranchers could use that money for their kids’ college funds or to build up a retirement nest egg. Those who buy the tax credits can apply them to tax liabilities.
    But for hundreds of Coloradans, the program hasn’t worked that way. The Department of Revenue has claimed that the state-certified appraisers made fraudulent appraisals, although only one case of a fraudulent appraisal was ever prosecuted in the program’s 17-year history.
    Some landowners, like Alan and Julie Gentz of Sterling, said they had to pay for five appraisals, although only one is required under program guidelines. Every appraisal came back with about the same value for the property, which has become something of an avian wildlife refuge. For several years, the Colorado Audubon Society used the Gentz farm for its annual winter count of bird species in northeastern Colorado.
  

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