Who pays rollback taxes when land sells?

The date on the deed is not the date that matters. The date that matters is the day the use changed, because the roll-back is "assessed against and paid by the owner of the property at the time the change in use which no longer qualifies occurs", or at the time of a rezoning to a more intensive use "at the request of the owner or his agent".

Put two sales of the same enrolled tract on either side of a closing and the answer splits cleanly. In the first, the seller starts a nonqualifying use on part of the land while the sale is pending, and the deed records a month later: the seller owned the land on the day of the change, so the seller is the owner the commissioner assesses. In the second, the land closes still in its qualifying use and the buyer changes it the next spring: the buyer owned it then, so the buyer is assessed.

Wythe County's FAQ states the second case in its own words. If an owner sells five acres of qualifying land and the new owner builds a dwelling, the new owner receives the roll-back, because "The land owner changing the use from qualifying to non-qualifying receives the rollback tax." That example is Wythe's; the rule behind it is the statute's.

There is also a third sale, the one with no change at all. Liability does not attach on a change in ownership if the new owner does not rezone the real estate to a more intensive use and continues it in its classified use, unless a subsection G ordinance provides otherwise, so there is nothing to assess. That case, and what each other kind of sale does, is on selling land that is in land use; which events count as a change is on what triggers rollback taxes.

The Code decides whom the commissioner assesses. It says nothing about which party ends up bearing the cost between themselves, and that silence is where the purchase contract comes in.

Ordinary real estate taxes show the pattern. Va. Code 58.1-3340 says the seller's liability for taxes and levies "shall be effectively prorated contractually", which leaves the formula to the parties. No section of the land use article sets any allocation of roll-back between a buyer and a seller at all, so any shift of it is written into the contract, and the closing attorney or settlement agent carries it out at closing.

• Who pays if the seller has already changed the use, or will before the deed records.
• Whether the price takes account of a buyer's plan to build, clear or rezone after closing.
• What happens when an assessment for a pre-closing change arrives after the parties have settled.

Those are the questions a roll-back clause can answer. How the words of one are drafted is the closing attorney's work, not a salesperson's. Who customarily pays each of the closing costs, deed taxes included, is on who pays closing costs in Virginia.

Timing matters here for a plain reason: the longer a contract runs before the deed, the more room there is for a change in use to fall inside it. How long a sale runs is a separate question, taken up in how long farms take to sell.