How timber is valuedfrom standing trees to a signed timber sale
A timber sale moves through recognizable stages: an estimate, a method of sale, a written contract, a harvest the State Forester is told about, and a buyer who owes payment and, when the landowner asks, an accounting of the loads. This guide follows those stages and names the agency guidance or Virginia statute behind each one.
An estimate of value and volume, before a buyer ever names a price
The Virginia Department of Forestry puts the seller's own homework ahead of any buyer's offer. Its timber sales brochure says:
Regardless of the sale method, the seller should have a good estimate of the value and volume of the timber to be removed prior to the sale.
Virginia Department of Forestry, Timber Sales
That is the agency's recommendation, and no statute cited in this guide requires it.
The estimate itself is forestry work. Who makes it, and why Virginia law keeps a forester's figure from being called an appraisal, are set out in do I need a timber cruise before selling, which also takes up the forest management plan VDOF recommends before a timber sale and whether a landowner selling the whole tract needs the woods measured first.
This guide is about selling the timber itself. Whether to cut the timber before a land sale or leave it standing for the buyer is part of selling a farm or acreage.
Stumpage: what the trees are worth while they are still standing
Standing timber has a name of its own, stumpage, and what the trees are worth while they still stand is their stumpage value. The word's two senses, and the factors Virginia Cooperative Extension names as most important to that value, are set out under stumpage in the glossary.
Buyers survey the woods before they make an offer, a survey Extension says is often called a timber cruise, and what that survey weighs beyond the trees themselves has its own entry.
Why a volume figure tells only part of what a hardwood stand is worth is taken up under that term.
This guide prints no stumpage prices, because no public agency price report stands behind one. A consulting forester or the VDOF county forester is the place to ask what a given stand would bring.
One word in forestry reports, timberland, is a federal reporting category with its own entry. Whether wooded ground qualifies for forest use in local taxation is a different test under state standards, set out in the land use program explained.
Tons for pulpwood, board feet for sawtimber, and a log rule both sides name
Volume is measured differently depending on what the wood will become.
Pulpwood is often measured by weight in tons, sawtimber by its volume, and wood can also be sold by the cord.
Sawtimber volume is stated in board feet, and the log rule that converts a log's diameter and length into board feet changes the total, because the common rules give different volumes for the same log; the board feet entry works through one log under three rules.
Extension says buyer and seller should openly agree which log rule is used. No statute cited in this guide names an official Virginia log rule, which leaves the choice to that open agreement.
Sealed bid, a negotiated price, or a share of the mill check
VDOF groups the ways of selling timber into three categories.
Sealed bid
The seller advertises the timber and buyers compete with sealed bids. VDOF says sealed bids usually generate top dollar, because competition gives buyers who need the timber and know the markets a reason to bid.Fixed price negotiation
The seller negotiates a fixed price with a buyer for all timber on a given acreage. VDOF says that can be a lump sum for all the timber, paid before harvesting, or a pay-as-cut value per unit for each timber product as it is harvested and mill receipts are tallied.Percent basis negotiation
The buyer or logger pays the landowner a percentage, or share, of what the mill pays for the wood.The method decides what you will later want to see. A lump sum settles the price before the first tree falls. Under pay-as-cut or a percentage share, the money depends on what actually leaves the tract and what the receiving facility records, which is why the load accounting rule in the next step matters most on those sales.
A written timber sale contract, then payment and the load tickets behind it
VDOF says timber sales should be based on a written contract, which protects the rights and obligations of both the seller and the buyer. Among the provisions it recommends, two tie straight to state rules: require the buyer to notify the Department of Forestry before logging starts, and require the landowner to see that the harvest complies with the Seed Tree Law for pine.
The Code then sets duties for the buyer: one on payment, one on accounting for the loads.
Payment in full
A buyer who buys timber directly from the landowner pays in full by the date in the written timber sales agreement. With no written agreement, payment is due within 60 days after the buyer removes the timber (Va. Code 55.1-2839 A).
An accounting of each load
When the wood is sold by weight, cord or board feet, the buyer must, if the landowner asks, furnish an accounting of each load within 30 days of the request or 30 days after removal, whichever is later, with supporting documents such as load tickets or settlement statements from the receiving facility (Va. Code 55.1-2840 A).
Price on the tickets only on a share deal
A load ticket or settlement report does not have to show price or market value unless the sale agreement, written or oral, pays the landowner a share of the value of the timber removed (Va. Code 55.1-2840 B).
The contract's dates, clauses and remedies are an attorney's drafting work. The point for the seller is simpler: the written agreement sets the payment date the statute points to, and whether the buyer has to show price on the tickets turns on whether the landowner is paid a share of the value removed.
Once the saws start: the operator's notice, the Seed Tree Law and the water
The harvest notice is the operator's duty, not the landowner's. Under Va. Code 10.1-1181.2 H, the operator notifies the State Forester of commercial harvesting of timber before the operation is complete and not later than three working days after it starts. Commercial harvesting here means cutting trees mainly to haul them to another site for further manufacturing.
The notice may be verbal or written. It gives the location and the actual or anticipated date, and an owner's name or the owner's representative or agent with contact information. VDOF's logger page says the logger must have a Timber Harvester Notification Identification Number, that notice can be filed online, by calling 1-800-939-LOGS (5647) or through a local DOF office, and that separate notifications are required for each owner when several owners' land is cut from the same log deck. If an operator fails to notify, the State Forester may assess a civil penalty of $250 for the first violation and not more than $1,000 for any later violation within 24 months.
Where the Seed Tree Law does not reach
This guide does not set out what the Seed Tree Law requires of a pine harvest itself; the VDOF county forester is the place to ask. Under Va. Code 10.1-1163, the law does not apply to:
- any acre with 400 or more loblolly or white pine seedlings, singly or together, four feet or more in height at the final cutting
- land cleared for bona fide agricultural or improved pasture purposes, where evidence of that intent "shall require, as a minimum and within twelve months from the date of completion of commercial cutting", that the land be cleared of all trees, snags, brush, tree tops and debris, or enclosed with a well-constructed fence and planted in grass seed to make a bona fide improved pasture
- land cleared to subdivide for building sites, where the evidence is dwellings or other bona fide structures in progress or finished within two years after the cutting ends
- land zoned for a more intensive use than agricultural or forestal use
- forest land under a planting, cutting or management plan designed to conserve natural resources and approved by the State Forester before any trees are cut
- individual landowners the State Forester exempts because they wish to grow hardwoods, on conditions he may set
Trees near the Blue Ridge Parkway raise questions of their own, covered in can I cut trees on land next to the Parkway.
Water quality orders reach the owner too
In Virginia's silvicultural water quality law, an owner includes anyone who owns or leases the land or owns the timber on it, and silvicultural activity includes harvesting timber, building roads and trails for forest management, and preparing land for reforestation. Where the State Forester believes the work is causing or likely to cause pollution, he may enter the operation to inspect it. He may also issue special orders, but a special order issues only after the owner or operator has had the opportunity for a hearing. An emergency order may issue without notice or hearing where sediment deposition presents an imminent and substantial danger. No special order issues to an owner or operator who used generally acceptable water quality protection techniques that failed, where the State Forester determines the pollution is the direct result of unusual weather events that could not have been reasonably anticipated. No notice or order issues more than one year after the activity occurred.
Trees cut without right, and the defense the statute keeps
A timber sale is only as good as the line around it. When timber is cut across that line without right, Virginia gives the rightful owner a damages remedy with a stated measure, and the statute keeps an exception beside it.
Under Va. Code 55.1-2836 B, a person who severs or removes timber from another's land without legal right or permission, or who authorizes or directs it, is liable to the rightful owner for three times the value of the timber on the stump, plus reforestation costs not to exceed $450 per acre, the cost of ascertaining the timber's value, directly associated legal costs and reasonable attorney fees.
The article carries an exception. Va. Code 55.1-2835 reaches one who "encroaches and cuts timber, except when acting prudently and under bona fide claim of right", and once the trespass is proven the defendant carries the burden of proving he acted that way. How that applies to a particular cutting is a question for an attorney.
Paint on the line matters in a criminal case. Under Va. Code 55.1-2838 B, removal from property marked with readily visible paint marks not more than 100 feet apart on trees or posts along the property line is prima facie evidence of intent to steal the timber; the statute also sets the size and height of the marks.
The rightful owner is not always the person who owns the ground. The trees on a tract can belong to someone else under a reservation or an earlier conveyance, which is covered in mineral and timber rights. Income tax on the proceeds of any timber sale is a question for a tax adviser.
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Good questions, straight answers.
Is it the landowner's job to tell the Department of Forestry that logging has started?
Not under the statute. Va. Code 10.1-1181.2 H puts the notice on the operator, who must notify the State Forester before the harvest is complete and not later than three working days after it starts. VDOF recommends that the timber sale contract also require the buyer to notify the Department before logging begins, so the written contract is where a landowner sees that duty assigned.
Can I get the mill's load tickets for my timber from the buyer?
Yes, on request, when the wood is sold by weight, cord or board feet. Va. Code 55.1-2840 requires the buyer to furnish an accounting of each load within 30 days of the request or 30 days after removal, whichever is later, including load tickets or settlement statements. Those papers need not show price unless the agreement pays the landowner a share of the value removed.
How long does a timber buyer have to pay if nothing was put in writing?
Sixty days from removal. Va. Code 55.1-2839 A says a buyer who purchases directly from the landowner pays in full by the date in the written timber sales agreement, or within 60 days after removing the timber when there is no written agreement. VDOF recommends a written contract for every timber sale, which is where a different payment date would be set.
Does clearing woods for pasture take a harvest outside the Seed Tree Law?
Only with the evidence the statute requires. Va. Code 10.1-1163 exempts land cleared for bona fide agricultural or improved pasture purposes, and its evidence of that intent "shall require, as a minimum and within twelve months from the date of completion of commercial cutting", that the land be cleared of all trees, snags, brush, tree tops and debris, or fenced with a well-constructed fence and seeded to make a bona fide improved pasture. Clearing for building sites needs dwellings or other bona fide structures in progress or completed within two years.
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.
- Timber Sales (VDOF P00118, May 2014) Virginia Department of Forestry
- Logger Notification System Virginia Department of Forestry
- Forest Landowner's Guide to the Measurement of Timber and Logs (420-085) Virginia Cooperative Extension
- Va. Code 10.1-1181.1: silvicultural definitions Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 10.1-1181.2: silvicultural pollution orders and harvest notification Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 10.1-1163: Seed Tree Law exemptions Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code Title 55.1, Chapter 28, Article 8, including 55.1-2835, 55.1-2836, 55.1-2838, 55.1-2839 and 55.1-2840 Virginia General Assembly