Maine Farmland Trust Inc.

“Maine farmland trust monitors each conservation interest annually - either with aerial monitoring or physical inspections - to ensure that conservation values are preserved and the terms of easements and deed restrictions are upheld. When a violation is suspected, staff work with legal counsel to evaluate the situation and undertake the best course of action and resolution.”

“Organization does not record conservation easements on its balance sheet and donations of easements are not reflected as income. Monitoring and stewardship expenses are expensed as incurred. Text of financial statement footnote: "conservation easements are deemed to be without economic value to maine farmland trust and therefore are valued at zero for accounting purposes."”

“Quasi-endowment fund earnings are intended to benefit the general operations of the organization.”

“Explanation for part ii, line 3: number of easements modified, transferred, released, extinguished, or terminated during 2019: 5 1. Hastings: the easement was granted to mft on 1/22/2016 with the intention to assign the easement to mahoosuc land trust once they raised the necessary stewardship funds. Mft assigned the easement on 5/24/2019 to mahoosuc land trust as the permanent holder. 2. Upland: the easement was granted to mft on 10/31/2019 and immediately assigned to three rivers land trust as the permanent holder. 3. Oakes field: in late 2018, a decision in a case before the fifth circuit court of appeals caused the land trust community to scramble to ensure that one sentence contained in most conservation easements granted in the last thirty years did not invalidate the charitable deductions of their grantors. The offending sentence dealt with the easement holder's share of any proceeds to be paid to the landowner by the government because of a "taking" of all or a portion of the protected property. In deductible easements, the share of those proceeds due to the holder is a percentage of the value of the land, which percentage is fixed at the time of the grant of the easement according to the relationship between the value of the land unencumbered and the value of the easement. Thus, if the easement value is 60% of the value of the land unencumbered, the land trust would be entitled to 60% of proceeds paid to the landowner because of a taking. Specifically, the sentence said that the pool of proceeds from which the holder's percentage would be taken would not include any proceeds attributable to permitted improvements constructed after the grant of the conservation easement - the theory being that the easement interest is really in the land underlying the improvements, and the land trust should not get a windfall because the landowner exercised their reserved rights to construct improvements. The consensus approach to addressing this issue for deductible easements is to remove the problem sentence from the easement template for deductible easements, and where the landowner hopes to take a deduction for an easement granted in 2018 that includes the sentence, to amend the easement to remove it. This easement was purchased by mft on 2/23/2018 and given the landowner's intention to seek a deduction for the bargain sale portion of his easement value, mft amended the easement to remove the offending sentence. An amendment was executed on 3/11/2019 and recorded in the appropriate registry of deeds. 4. Fogg family farm: after the original grantor passed away, his heir wished to ensure that the farm stay actively managed after the property is sold. The original easement, donated on 11/10/2011 did not include mft's standard requirement to maintain existing open fields. The landowner requested that the easement be amended to include this requirement, prior to his sale of the property. The amendment was executed on 9/5/2019 and recorded in the appropriate registry of deeds. 5. Silverman farm: the easement was purchased on 9/1/2017 simultaneously with the sale of the property to a new landowner ("dandelion springs"). The deed and amendment were recorded by the closing agent afterward. When mft's title insurer updated title, they found that an affidavit had been recorded by the abutter to the south just hours prior to the recording of the deed and easement. The affidavit claimed ownership of a six-acre portion of the property along its southern boundary (the "disputed parcel") by virtue of the abutter's deed as well as through theories of adverse possession and acquiescence. The affidavit also referenced an earlier affidavit, recorded in 2015 that made similar claims. However, the 2015 affidavit had been mis-indexed so neither dandelion spring's nor mft's title searches revealed the existence of the dispute. After some back and forth between dandelion springs and the abutter, the abutter threatened legal action and dandelion spring's ti”