Conservation easement
A conservation easement, under Virginia's Conservation Easement Act, is a holder's nonpossessory interest in real property that imposes limitations or affirmative obligations for purposes such as protecting natural or open-space values, keeping land available for agricultural, forestal or recreational use, or protecting natural resources. It is perpetual unless the instrument creating it provides a specific time.
A holder's interest, accepted and recorded, then bound to the land
The Virginia Conservation Easement Act defines a conservation easement as a nonpossessory interest of a holder in real property, imposing limitations or affirmative obligations. The purposes it lists include protecting natural or open-space values, keeping land available for agricultural, forestal, recreational or open-space use, protecting natural resources, maintaining or enhancing air or water quality, and preserving the historical, architectural or archaeological aspects of real property.
That makes it one particular kind of easement: an interest in land the holder does not possess. The related scenic easement has its own entry.
Who can be a holder is set by statute. Under the Act, a holder is a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, association or trust whose primary purposes or powers include conservation purposes and that also meets the Act's five-year Virginia office requirement or co-holds with a holder that does, while the separate Open-Space Land Act lets a public body hold an open-space easement. Who may hold one, and how an easement is created, is laid out in conservation easements explained.
Under the Act, no right or duty arises under a conservation easement until the holder accepts it and the acceptance is recorded.
Perpetual by default, and bound to every owner who follows
A conservation easement is perpetual unless the instrument creating it provides a specific time.
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which holds open-space easements under the Open-Space Land Act, describes its own easements this way: the restrictions are embodied in a deed that is permanently bound to the property and passed down to future owners, and once the deed has been recorded it cannot be undone.
For a buyer, a tract already under a recorded easement comes with its restrictions for as long as the easement lasts, whoever owns it next. Whether and how much those restrictions lower what the land brings is a separate question, taken up in does a conservation easement lower the price.
What is restricted is written in the recorded deed, not in a general rule
What a given tract's easement permits and forbids is written into its own recorded deed of easement, so two easements can restrict very different things.
Land already under a conservation easement?
Send the county and what you know about the recorded easement. Lowell will talk through how its restrictions fit into a sale, while the deed's terms stay with your attorney. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions about this term
Does putting land under a conservation easement mean giving up ownership?
No. A conservation easement gives the holder a nonpossessory interest that limits certain uses, and the landowner keeps the land. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation says its easements let landowners continue living on and managing the land for farming, forestry and other compatible uses, within the terms of the recorded deed.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Va. Code 10.1-1009: definitions, Virginia Conservation Easement Act Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 10.1-1010: creation, acceptance, duration and validity of conservation easements Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 10.1-1700: Open-Space Land Act definitions Code of Virginia
- New Easements Virginia Outdoors Foundation