Family subdivision
A family subdivision is a single division of a lot or parcel for sale or gift to a member of the owner's immediate family, which every Virginia county's subdivision ordinance must permit. The statute allows one such division per family member, and the division may not be for the purpose of circumventing the statute.
Three questions decide whether a split is a family division
Is it one division? Is the person receiving the land immediate family as the statute lists them? And is the division what it says it is, rather than a way around the statute? A split that fails any of the three is not the division the statute protects.
- A single division. Va. Code 15.2-2244 has the ordinance in any county permit a single division of a lot or parcel for sale or gift to a member of the owner's immediate family, including that family member's spouse.
- Immediate family, as defined. The statute's list is a natural or legally defined offspring, stepchild, spouse, sibling, grandchild, grandparent or parent of the owner. A locality may add aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.
- Not a workaround. The limit is written into the same section, in its own words below.
Only one such division shall be allowed per family member, and shall not be for the purpose of circumventing this section.
Va. Code 15.2-2244
A county's own ordinance words its definition of immediate family in its own text, so who qualifies on a particular deed is a question for that county's subdivision agent.
What the statute lets a county require, and what Carroll's posted ordinance adds
Va. Code 15.2-2244 names one requirement a county may attach to the division itself: family division lots of less than five acres can be required to have a right-of-way of not less than 10 feet or more than 20 feet providing access to a dedicated recorded public street.
Carroll County's posted ordinance shows how far a county's conditions can reach past the deed: it repeats the one-division limit, adds a holding period of at least two years before the lot may pass outside the family without the Administrator's express written permission, and applies every other requirement of the ordinance to the lot.
How the hold periods and access rules differ across the counties in this footprint, and what they mean once the deed is recorded, is compared in what a family subdivision is in Virginia.
A named class inside the subdivision ordinance, not a way out of it
A family division lives inside the subdivision ordinance. Va. Code 15.2-2241 lists it among the provisions every subdivision ordinance must include, and Carroll County classifies its subdivisions as Class A, Class B or Family Subdivisions, and its definitions also describe a Class C.
Being a named class does not mean skipping the paperwork: in Carroll County a plat of a family subdivision is still made, approved and recorded, though the Agent may approve it without sending it to the Administrator.
Splitting off a piece of a larger tract for a relative is also answered in brief on the page about land development and feasibility, alongside the other rules a division meets.
Planning a division for a family member?
Send Lowell the county and the acreage, and he will talk through what that county's family division terms ask of the tract before anyone draws a line. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions about this term
Does a family division have to be a gift, or can the relative buy the lot?
Either. Va. Code 15.2-2244 has a county's subdivision ordinance permit the single division for the purpose of sale or gift to a member of the owner's immediate family, so the statute covers a lot sold to the relative as well as one given. What the relative may do with the lot afterward is a county term: Carroll County's posted ordinance, for one, has the lot retained by the family member for at least two years after conveyance. The price and the deed's terms are for the parties and their attorney.
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 15.2-2244: provisions for subdivision of a lot or parcel for conveyance to a family member Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 15.2-2241: mandatory provisions of a subdivision ordinance Code of Virginia
- Subdivision Ordinance of Carroll County, Virginia (posted text amended through April 14, 2014) Carroll County, Virginia