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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a conservation easement? A conservation easement is a legally enforceable restriction on the future uses of property, which can be sold or granted as a gift by the lands current owners. Granted in the form of a deed to a governmental entity or qualified conservation land trust, it is designed to preserve and protect the lands conservation values over time, while leaving the land in private ownership and on the tax rolls. The holders of the easement have the right to enforce the restrictions on the land. Conservation easements can be designed to keep a property in an essentially wild state, or to allow limited residential uses, farming and forestry. Some conservation easements grant public access on or over the private lands. All future owners of the land take it subject to the easements restrictions. Conservation Easements are authorized under state and federal law and have certain requirements that must be met to make them legally binding and, in the case of federal law, to make them deductible as a charitable gift. Experienced legal and accounting advice is essential to the landowner in making a decision to grant a permanent conservation easement.
(see 2. What does conservation lands mean? Property owned in fee that is protected for the primary purposes of retaining or protecting natural, scenic or open space values; assuring its availability for agricultural, forest, recreational or open space use; protecting natural resources such as maintaining or enhancing air or water quality. 3. What is the purpose of the registry? Conservation easements have become a very common tool used to protect Maine's special character including its fish and wildlife habitat, farms, working forests, other natural resources, scenery, and outdoor recreation opportunities. In 2007, the Maine Legislature enacted a series of amendments to Maine law authorizing conservation easements (see now Title 33 MRS �§476 et seq). Of particular note is the new requirement that conservation easement Holder monitor each of its easements at least once every three years. Because most conservation easements create perpetual restrictions on the use of the properties they affect, the Legislature also decided that it would be important to create a central registry of conservation easements to facilitate oversight and to track the use of conservation easements throughout the state. Additionally, the recent requirement for the registration of fee owned conservation lands allows for a similar ability to track conservation lands within the state. 4. I own land that has a conservation easement on it. Do I need to register? No. The owner of the land "under" a conservation easement is not responsible for registration. Only the Holder of the easement must register it. Landowners may want to check with the organization holding the easement on their property to be sure it has been registered but they, as landowners, have no legal responsibility for that action. 5. What kind of easements need to be registered? Only conservation easements need to be registered in this registry. Do not register other real estate conveyances sometimes referred to as easements including historic preservation easements, solar easements, rights of way or utility easements. Some instruments labled "trail easements" actually cite Title 33 MRSA section 476 et seq and are thus conservation easements that should be registered. If the "trail easement" references Title 33 MRSA section 1581 et seq it does not need to be registered. If in doubt, contact the Registry Administrator. 6. What kinds of conservation lands need to be registered? Property owned in fee that is protected for the primary purposes of retaining or protecting natural, scenic or open space values; assuring its availability for agricultural, forest, recreational or open space use; protecting natural resources such as maintaining or enhancing air or water quality. Any entity that is the primary Holder of a conservation easement on property in the State of Maine is required to register all of the conservation easements it holds. Such entities include state and federal agencies, municipalities, quasi-municipal organizations such as water districts, local land trusts and any other charitable trust or nonprofit corporation. Title 33 MRS §476 et seq provides the legal authority for conservation easements in Maine. Parties listed as third party Holders or third party enforcers do not need to register that conservation easement. Legislation added in 2017 now requires landowners of fee owned conservation lands to register their property as well. 8. Is there an annual reporting deadline? YES. The annual renewal deadline is March 30. You should review your registry records for accuracy, add new conservation easements and update the monitoring status of each conservation easement as well as your fee owned conservation lands by this date. Annual registration fee payment needs to be completed on line via credit cards. MasterCard or VISA is acceptable. Whenever you sign-on to the registry after January 1 you will be reminded of the need to update records although you can be adding easements or fee parcels and managing your records at any time during the year. 9. What is the Monitoring Status? Every conservation easement should be monitored regularly by the Holder. This activity includes a field visit to the property, typically a meeting with the landowner, and a written report that is held in the Holder's files. Maine law requires that all conservation easements be monitored at least once every three years and best practices entail annual monitoring. This data field is used to enter the date of the most recent monitoring report. If the easement is less than one year old, please enter the same date as the "Date of Recording". 10. What information do I need to start the conservation easement registration process? If you don�t already have one, you will need to create an account. This will require you to create a username and password and supply an email address for your organization to which you have access. The Registry will send a confirming email to that email address with instructions on how to activate the account. The initial activation will require the full name and mailing address of the organization, EIN, a contact name and phone number, the Maine corporate charter number (if any) and the type of organization. You will be prompted to pay a registration fee by credit card, (MasterCard or Visa). Please note that you cannot enter your registration data without first having entered a valid credit card number. Once you have activated your account you will be prompted to register all of your organization's conservation easements. You will need the following information:
11. What information do I need to start the conservation lands registration process? If you haven�t already, you will need to create an account. This will require you to create a username and password and supply an email address for your organization to which you have access. The Registry will send a confirming email to that email address with instructions on how to activate the account. The initial activation will require the full name and mailing address of the organization, EIN, a contact name and phone number, the Maine corporate charter number (if any) and the type of organization. You will be prompted to pay an initial registration fee of $80 by credit card, (MasterCard or Visa). Please note that you cannot enter your registration data without first having entered a valid credit card number. Once you have activated your account you will be prompted to register all of your organization's fee owned conservation lands. You will need the following information:
12. Do I need to register a conservation easement for which my organization is a third-party Holder or enforcer? NO. The primary Holder will register that conservation easement and should be listing you as third-party Holder or third-party enforcer as part of that registration. 13. Can I upload my information to the registry? NO. Data security concerns and the likelihood of errors introduced during an upload preclude this option. Once entered, annual updates of conservation easement monitoring status will be relatively quick. Once you have entered your fee owned conservation lands, your annual updates will only include any changes in ownership or newly acquired fee properties. 14. Can I download my information? YES. You may download all of the data associated with your organization's registration. Downloads will be displayed as a comma-delimited text file with field names. This information can be saved to your computer as a text file for import to another database or cut and pasted into a spreadsheet like Excel. Because the Registry is a relational database, the information must be downloaded in several separate files. A unique identifier is provided with each so that you can import the data to your database and reassociate the data. 15. What is an amendment? What do I need to do? Amendments to the conservation easement itself need to be added to your easement record. There is a set of fields for the County, book, page and date of registration for easement record. To add an amendment to an existing easement record, select the easement and chose the view/edit/amend option. At the bottom of the next screen will be an "Add Amendement" button. This will prompt you to enter the appropriate information. The sale of the conserved property itself is NOT an amendment. 16. I have a conservation easement that adds acreage to an existing easement. How do I register this? If the easement falls exclusively within a single town, you can register this transaction as an amendment to the existing easement and then edit the acreage field on the easement itself to add the new acreage. If the easement adds acreage in a new town, you will need to register this as a new easement. Please use the "Comments" field on both the new and old easement to explain the relationship between the two easements. 17. How do I handle subdivisions of the protected property? Some conservation easements allow for division of the protected property. If this happens the Registry allows you to enter an additional Current Landowner name to the record of that easement up to 10. Such a division does not affect the conservation easement deed your organization holds and you do NOT need to transfer the easement or add an amendment. If there is a subdivision of fee owned conservation land, new owners that fall under the statute requirements should register their portion of the property. 18. The conserved property has been sold to a new owner. Do I need to do anything? For conservation easements: Please update the Current Landowner field of a conservation easement record. You should write over the name of the old (previous) landowner. Note: You do not need to enter any of the recording information for the sale (book and page). The sale of the land itself is NOT an amendment to the easement. For fee owned conservation lands: The new owner should register the parcel and update the owner information and other relative data. 19. What is considered "income"? Income can be defined as harvest income, "gate" fees, donation box, rental, and other funds that are directed for the upkeep of the property, of the organization, etc. 20. What does it mean by "public access"? This registry is not asking for detailed information at this time. The data requests reflect the current dataset used in the Conservation Lands data layer maintained by MEGIS. "Yes", "No" or "Contact landowner" are the applicable responses. 21. How do I transfer a conservation easement? The Registry provides a simple transfer feature. You only need to know the organizational name under which the recipient of the transferred easement is listed in the Registry. If the recipient is not already in the Registry, you will need to ask them to set up an active account. You will also need the recording information (book and page) of the deed of transfer. After submitting a request to transfer, the recipient will receive an email with the request. When they accept the transfer the Registry will make the update in its records. 22. How do I handle terminations of a conservation easement? The termination of a conservation easement requires action by a court of law and is an unusual event. Should your organization hold a conservation easement which has been terminated, you will need to contact the Registry Administrator to confirm that this has occurred and to supply any documentation the Administrator may require. Upon confirmation of court decision, the Administrator will deactivate that conservation easement and it will no longer appear in Registry records as an active or valid conservation easement. 23. What is the internal ID number? This is a unique number or code assigned by you exclusively for your own management of easement records held by your organization. By using this field you can cross check your information held in the Registry with your own records. This field is optional and can be left blank. 24. Is the conservation easement registry information available to the public? YES. All information contained in the Registry is treated as a public record under Maine law and is available to the public upon request. Parties seeking registry information should contact the Registry Administrator. The information is available only in tabular form and does not contain any maps or geospatial information at this time.
Questions about this Service? Contact the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry at: (207) 287-3200 or Email: EasementAdministrator@maine.gov |
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