I'm assuming this gets asked but I am a dum dum with the search functions. Never owned land before but I'm looking at purchasing 5 acres that currently as an Ag exemption and building a home in the property. What do I need to consider in terms of whether / how I can keep that exemption? The Comptrollers site talks about 5 years of use but I'm not sure if how the previous landowner used the property was relevant. I'm also not sure how the building of a dwelling comes into play (ie does that portion of land have to be carved out of the exemption?). I've also read size can be relevant (something like 5 acres for certain livestock but 10 or 15 minimum for other livestock).

Talk to the tax appraisal office in your county. Some counties will pull an acre for a home or cabin from the total acreage.

Is it currently 5 acres total or being separated from a larger tract? Some county appraisal districts will challenge the Ag exemption on 5 ac or smaller.

Agree they will typically pull out one acre for a house. Making it 4 ac and possibly challenging your current exemption.

To you other question, typically if has the exemption, and no changes being made except ownership, it would maintain its exemption.

Ask around in your county what others know, and if you want to be sure ask the appraiser, but do so generically not with the property location specifics.

Agree with talking to your county tax office. 60 acres adjoining my place was developed a few years ago. I was able to buy 25 acres that was not suitable for homes and kept an ag exemption, but even though the other tracts were up to 8 or 10 acres, they were not allowed ag exemptions.

Small acreages are difficult to qualify.

Call the county appraisal district and ask if they have an Ag Appraiser. If so, talk to him and ask about size requirements. Residential structures cannot be on 1- d-1, open space valuation (Ag exempt) land. That acre will not qualify as Ag land. Barns and out buildings can be on Ag exempt property just not a house or mobile home.

If you buy your land after 1/1 of the year, it will maintain the existing valuation until the next 1/1/21. So if it is Ag exempt, it will stay Ag exempt until the next January.

to qualify for Ag statutorily you need 2 things

1) 5 of the last 7 years of the property being used for a qualified agricultural use

2) at the time of application the application must be made to the minimum degree of intensity generally accepted for the area

If the property had Ag in the past then the first hurdle is met, however you will have to contact the central appraisal district for the county the property is in to get the Ag guidelines.

If you do have 5 acres and do intend to put some kind of living area out there then some land will be set aside for that as the application is for land dedicated to the Ag practices.Most counties im aware of can only qualify via an orchard of some type for less than 5 acres.

Anyway you can get and extra acre? If you have 5 acres dedicated to Ag then you can qualify for bees as that size statewide is 5-20 acres and more than likely on 5 acres you will need 6 hives.

To add, if your five acres is in Edwards County, you're screwed. There, the county requirements somehow magically supersede the state requirements and guidelines.

There are no state requirements for Ag except for what I quoted out of section 23 of the tax code

point of technicality:

It's not an exemption; it is a change to the valuation of the property.

Instead of being valued at its fair market value for sale, the land is valued based on what it can produce.

The result is a significant tax savings in most cases.

If it is currently in an ag valuation, you must continue to utilize it to the required intensity as noted above. Failure to do so could (likely) to result in roll-back taxes due to teh change in use. Meaning, you could be responsible for property taxes at FMV for the current year AND the previous three years PLUS 5% interest. see here: Changes to Roll-back

Each county is different with respect to minimum size and stocking/use intensity.

It has to be replat so I assume it's being carved out of a larger property. I believe it's current use for qualification purposes is as a pasture. I was planning to use the free portion of the land for an orchard. It's technically 5 and some change so not sure if I'm able to build the house and fence it such that I can claim a full 5 acres is functionally dedicated to agriculture. There's probably some wiggle room to negotiate more land if need be.

In general, based on what y'all are saying, it seems like there will be some work to do to qualify so I shouldn't base my purchase decision on being able to get property tax relief?

I own propertIes in 3 counties (excluding my house) and looked at at least a dozen more. In my experience 10 acres is typically the minimum except for bees and some counties orchard, but you need to read your county 1d1 rules. Like for instance in Cooke county, you must have a minimum 30 acres to run a cow/calf operation and they don't allow timber exemptions.

I was reading 1d1 rules in this county and the guidelines for an orchard are a minimum of 5 acres and the yield per acre is 100 fruit trees or 24 pecan trees. I suppose for young trees that might be fine but pecan trees can get massive. Some other fruit trees are similarly large. I can't imagine 24 pecan trees fitting on an acre. Are those typically hard requirements or recommendations?

ag94whoop said:

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I own propertIes in 3 counties (excluding my house) and looked at at least a dozen more. In my experience 10 acres is typically the minimum except for bees and some counties orchard, but you need to read your county 1d1 rules. Like for instance in Cooke county, you must have a minimum 30 acres to run a cow/calf operation and they don't allow timber exemptions.

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this

MaxPower said:

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I was reading 1d1 rules in this county and the guidelines for an orchard are a minimum of 5 acres and the yield per acre is 100 fruit trees or 24 pecan trees. I suppose for young trees that might be fine but pecan trees can get massive. Some other fruit trees are similarly large. I can't imagine 24 pecan trees fitting on an acre. Are those typically hard requirements or recommendations?

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depends on the assessor. generally, pretty solid otherwise folks could claim inequity in application. also, OFTEN, but not always, the home site is set at 1 ac. If this is teh case in your county, you'd likely need another acre to qualify.

Again, if you don't keep / put it into production, there will be roll-back taxes. If you don;t want to hassle with it, negotiate who pays the roll-back into the contract.

One way to keep Ag on the portion not used for residential is to have a grazing lease with an adjacent property who has ample acreage and is currently qualified for the exemption.

Also, I believe last September Texas legislature changed the roll-back taxes to 3 years, not 5 anymore.

if you have 16 acres in ag for more 5 years with bees, then you want to build a house, does the county mark the boundries for the one acre carve out for the home for taxes.

Buddy is building a house on the 16 acres. He is wanting to build a small barn structure away from the house. The property is a triangle shape. The house is in one corner of the triangle. You can mark off 1.33 acres between the edge of the house and the corner. leaving the other 14 acres all in one parcel to the south.

The barn wound be in teh 14 acre parcel.

The city does not want him to build the barn due to it not meeting codes for set backs for a house. His complaint is it is not for the house, it is for his ag property. It is 75 yards away from the house.

Does ag property have different laws vs building a home?

In my experience, the county is very generic on how they define the homesite. Unfortunately, so much depends on what county you are in. Your friend might want to call and talk to their ag exemption person in their county and ask some questions, without IDing what property he has. Maybe act as if he was looking at some land to buy.

He may also want to just get a real estate attorney to deal with the city.