Family farm - partition

[southerntester]

Jurisdiction

Virginia

Our family owns a 180+ acre farm in Virginia. My brother and I each own 1/12 of the farm. Our cousin and her husband has lived there for 20+ years rent free and now have served us with a partition notice. They had a friend provide a BS appraisal at $750k and want to force us to sell at that price. Our investigation discovered that most of the surrounding land has been bought by a large company and the sales averaged over $14k per acre. Our suspicion is that our relatives already have a deal in place to sell our farm to this major company for many times what they are proposing to us. The cousin is supposed to be buying everyone out to keep the farm in the family and not interested in selling out.

We retained an attorney but haven't been happy with their response times or legal suggestions to this point. They are pushing us to accept the low offer and just move on.

During this we reached out to another local appraiser and got an unofficial value of $1.1 million, nothing in writing though. They did not use the recent sales of the surrounding properties for comps.

We want counter with the $1.1 value and take our 1/12 for now plus a clause that if the farm sells in the next 15 years we also get 1/12 of that sale as well.

Any help would be appreciated...

 

[army judge]

Any help would be appreciated

The help you seek can't be obtained here for free.

Think about it.

You're looking for $1,100,000.

I suggest you fire or release your current attorney, and seek a replacement more suitable to your tastes.

 

[Foamback]

$14K/acre x $180 acres is $2.5M, or $210K per 1/12 share. How is this $1.1M valuation even derived? That seems weird.

Get a good current professional appraisal that you pay for. Base your asking price on that. Otherwise, stand pat.

 

[adjusterjack]

OP has posted this on three sites so far.

 

[zddoodah]

Our family owns a 180+ acre farm in Virginia. My brother and I each own 1/12 of the farm.

Who owns the other 5/6ths of the farm, and how do the various joint owners jointly own the property (e.g., as joint tenants)?

Our cousin and her husband has lived there for 20+ years rent free and now have served us with a partition notice.

OK...does either or do both of them own some of the 5/6th interest that you and your brother don't own?

They had a friend provide a BS appraisal at $750k

I assume you think it's "a BS appraisal" because the "unofficial" appraisal you received came in 50% higher?

Our suspicion is that our relatives already have a deal in place to sell our farm to this major company for many times what they are proposing to us.

Are "our relatives" different from "our cousin and her husband"?

The cousin is supposed to be buying everyone out to keep the farm in the family and not interested in selling out.

So...that's good?

We retained an attorney

"We" being...you and your brother?

but haven't been happy with their response times or legal suggestions to this point. . . .

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure what "help" you think anyone here can provide.

We want counter with the $1.1 value and take our 1/12 for now plus a clause that if the farm sells in the next 15 years we also get 1/12 of that sale as well.

So...do it. However, I did the same math as in the first response above and agree with that suggestion.