Georgia Farm Estate Planning: Trusts, CUVA, and Section 2032A

Georgia farm estate planning is the work of deciding, in advance and in writing, who gets the land, who runs the operation, and how the family will pay any taxes due without having to sell acreage to raise cash. Most farm wealth sits in ground, equipment, and livestock that cannot be split without wrecking the operation, so a plan built around a simple will and equal shares often does more damage than no plan at all. Georgia imposes no state estate or inheritance tax, which means the only death tax threshold that matters here is the federal exemption, set at $15 million per person for 2026.¹ Appreciated land near growing metro areas can cross that line faster than owners expect.

Why Dying Without a Plan Is Worse for a Farm

If a Georgia farmer dies without a will, state intestacy rules decide who inherits. A surviving spouse shares the estate equally with the decedent’s children and is guaranteed at least one-third regardless of how many children survive.² A spouse with four surviving children takes one-third while the children divide two-thirds. A spouse alone, with no descendants, takes everything.

For a working farm, that default is often ruinous. Every heir ends up with an undivided fractional interest in every parcel, a tenancy in common. No one can sell, lease, or mortgage their piece without affecting the whole. When heirs who want to farm clash with heirs who want cash, the dispute lands in a partition action, and a court can order the land sold at auction. Generations of accumulated acreage have been lost in rural Georgia this way. A written plan prevents intestacy from ever applying.

Picking the Right Transfer Vehicle

The core choice is how the land legally moves from one generation to the next. Four tools do most of the work in Georgia farm plans, and each has a different tradeoff between control, privacy, cost, and flexibility.

A Will

A will is the most straightforward instrument. It names an executor, directs how land and equipment are distributed, and is filed with the Probate Court in the county where the decedent lived.² The disadvantage is that probate is public. Anyone can look up the estate inventory, including what the farm is worth.

Georgia law also lets a surviving spouse or the guardian of minor children petition the Probate Court for a “year’s support,” setting aside property from the estate for maintenance. The petition must be filed within 24 months of death and must describe the specific property requested, including a full legal description of any real estate.³ Year’s support takes priority over most other claims and can shield the homestead and working acreage from creditors.

A Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust holds title to the farm during the owner’s lifetime and passes it to beneficiaries at death outside of probate. The trust document stays private. The farmer serves as trustee, keeps full control, and can sell land, change beneficiaries, or dissolve the trust at any time.

Every parcel has to be re-titled into the trust’s name for this to work. Anything left in the farmer’s individual name at death falls back into probate. A pour-over will catches the gap by directing stray assets into the trust at death, though those items still move through probate briefly before the trust’s terms govern them.

A Life Estate

A life estate splits ownership. The life tenant, often a surviving spouse, has the right to live on and profit from the farm for life. The remainder interest passes automatically to designated heirs when the life tenant dies, with no probate required. The life tenant can collect rent from cropland or timber income but cannot sell or mortgage the underlying land without the remainder holders’ consent, which keeps the farm safe from personal creditors of the life tenant. The tradeoff is rigidity: once recorded, the arrangement is hard to undo if circumstances change.

A Business Entity

Rather than deed physical acres to several heirs, many farm families place the operation inside a limited liability company or family limited partnership and distribute ownership interests instead. The land stays under one title while each heir receives a defined financial stake.

A family limited partnership separates control from ownership. The general partner, usually the senior generation, runs the operation. Limited partners share profits but have no management authority. The partnership agreement should spell out what happens when the general partner dies or becomes incapacitated.

An LLC offers similar flexibility with an added layer of liability protection; if someone is injured on the farm or the operation defaults on a debt, members’ personal assets are generally shielded. The operating agreement should include a right of first refusal clause requiring any member who wants to sell to offer the interest to the other members first on the same terms. That provision alone can keep an outside buyer from acquiring a slice of the family operation.

Both structures let owners shift small percentages over time, moving wealth to the next generation gradually. Whatever the structure, the governing agreement needs to address what happens when an heir wants out, including how the buyout price is set and whether installments are available. Vague provisions here invite a lawsuit that can force the entire entity into liquidation.

Protect the CUVA and Forest Land Covenants Through the Transfer

Georgia offers two property tax programs that lower the annual tax burden on farmland, and both carry long-term covenants that run with the land and transfer to new owners. Mishandling them during estate administration is one of the most expensive mistakes a Georgia farm family can make.

The Conservation Use Valuation Assessment, known as CUVA, taxes qualifying agricultural land on its productivity rather than its development value. Enrollment requires a 10-year covenant committing the land to bona fide agricultural use, and no single owner can enroll more than 2,000 acres statewide.⁴ Qualifying uses include crop production, livestock, timber, horticulture, and aquaculture. Application is made on Form PT-283A to the county board of tax assessors.

Breaching a CUVA covenant costs twice the difference between the taxes actually paid under conservation use and what would have been owed at full fair market value, for every year the covenant was in effect, plus interest.⁴ The penalty hits the entire enrolled tract even if the breach touches only a small portion. Carving out a few acres for a family member’s house lot can trigger a penalty on everything.

The Forest Land Protection Act applies to larger timber tracts: at least 200 acres in aggregate across one or more counties, with parcels of at least 100 acres within any single county.⁵ Covenants that began on or after January 1, 2019, run for 10 years, and a breach triggers a comparable recapture.⁶

When CUVA-enrolled land transfers through inheritance, the new owner must apply for continuation of the conservation use assessment within 30 days of the date on the notice sent by the county board of tax assessors.⁷ Miss that deadline and the county can treat the lapse as a breach, pulling in years of accumulated tax savings as a penalty. The estate attorney should flag every enrolled parcel at the start of administration and calendar the response window the moment the ownership transfer is recorded.

Managing the Federal Estate Tax Bill

With the 2026 federal exemption at $15 million per individual, a married couple can shield up to $30 million from estate tax with proper planning.¹ Estates above that face a top marginal rate of 40%. For larger operations, three federal provisions can cut or defer what’s owed.

Special Use Valuation Under Section 2032A

Farmland is often worth far more as potential development than as cropland. Section 2032A lets the estate value qualified farm property based on its agricultural use rather than its highest-and-best-use market price. The maximum reduction for 2026 is $1,460,000.⁸ Qualifying requires several tests to be met:

At least 50% of the adjusted gross estate must consist of farm real and personal property that was being used for farming at death and passes to a qualified heir.
At least 25% of the adjusted gross estate must be qualified farm real property.
The decedent or a family member must have materially participated in the farm operation for at least five of the eight years before death.
If the heir stops farming or sells the land within 10 years, the estate must repay the tax savings from the reduced valuation.

These thresholds are strict, and the election is made on the estate tax return.⁹ Missing any one of them disqualifies the whole election.

Stepped-Up Basis

When the farm passes at death, the tax basis of every asset resets to fair market value as of the date of death. All the appreciation that built up during the original owner’s lifetime is wiped clean for capital gains purposes. A farmer who paid $1,000 an acre for 500 acres and dies when the land is worth $8,000 an acre leaves heirs with an $8,000 basis. If they sell the following year for $8,200, they owe capital gains only on the $200 of post-inheritance appreciation.¹⁰

Married couples who hold property as joint tenants get a stepped-up basis on 50% of the assets when the first spouse dies, and the other 50% steps up when the surviving spouse dies. Documentation of value at death is essential: an appraisal for real estate and published market data for equipment and commodities. Without it, the IRS can assign a basis of zero and turn the full sale price into taxable gain.¹⁰

Deferred Payment Under Section 6166

If the farm represents more than 35% of the adjusted gross estate, the estate can elect to pay the portion of federal estate tax attributable to the farm over 14 years rather than in a lump sum within nine months of death. The usual structure is up to five years of interest-only payments followed by ten annual installments of principal and interest. The election is made on the Form 706 estate tax return.

The deferral comes with conditions. If heirs sell or dispose of 50% or more of the farm business interest during the deferral period, all remaining tax becomes immediately due. Missing an installment payment by more than six months triggers the same acceleration. The provision buys time to generate income from the operation rather than selling land to cover the tax bill, but the compliance obligation runs for the full 14 years.

Treating Farming and Non-Farming Heirs Fairly

Most farm families include at least one child who works the land and one or more who do not. Leaving the farm in equal shares forces the farming heir to either buy out siblings or share management with people who have no interest in agriculture. Neither path tends to end well.

Life insurance is one common fix. The parents purchase a second-to-die policy naming the non-farming children as beneficiaries. The farm goes to the child who works it, and the insurance payout provides roughly equivalent value to the others. Second-to-die policies pay out only after both parents have died, which holds premiums lower than individual coverage.¹¹ The limitation is that some farmers are uninsurable due to age or health by the time they start planning.

A buy-sell agreement is the other common path. The farming heir receives an option to purchase the interests of non-farming siblings over time, typically through installment payments funded by farm income. The agreement should lock in a valuation method so there is no fight about price later, and a right of first refusal should prevent any heir from selling an interest to an outsider before offering it to the family.¹² The purchase option timeframe and payment schedule are the two provisions that matter most. Leaving either one vague invites litigation.

Keeping USDA Programs Alive After Death

Farms enrolled in Farm Service Agency programs, crop insurance, or conservation contracts do not automatically keep those benefits for heirs. An authorized representative should contact the local FSA county office as soon as possible after the death. The office will want legal documentation establishing who has authority to act for the estate, which may include the will, court orders, or trust agreements.¹³

To collect payments the deceased farmer had earned but not yet received, heirs file Form FSA-325.¹³ If the farm was held inside an LLC or partnership, a representative must provide updated information on the entity’s new ownership structure to keep the operation program-eligible. Delay in notifying FSA can mean missed payment windows or a lapse in crop insurance coverage that leaves the operation exposed for a full growing season. During administration, an executor may need signatory authority on FSA contracts, which is established through Form FSA-211.¹⁴

What to Gather Before You Draft Anything

No lawyer can build a usable plan from a vague description of “the farm.” Before the first drafting meeting, you need a complete picture of what you own and what is owed on it.

Start with legal descriptions for every parcel. These are recorded with the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where each tract sits, along with current deeds, security interests, and liens.¹⁵ Pull the deed for each tract to confirm the exact ownership structure and any co-owner or lender claims.

Build a detailed equipment list with serial numbers, approximate values, and remaining loan balances. Do the same for livestock head counts, stored grain or hay, and prepaid inputs such as seed or fertilizer contracts. The IRS can set the basis of any undocumented asset to zero, so the inventory matters at tax time too.¹⁰ List every outstanding debt, from FSA loans to operating lines of credit to equipment notes. Liabilities reduce the taxable estate, and missing them costs heirs money.

For any farm that may owe federal estate tax, a professional appraisal of the land establishes fair market value at death. The appraiser should hold a Certified General Appraiser credential under Georgia law and ideally carry the Accredited Rural Appraiser designation, which requires specialized coursework in agricultural valuation and conservation easements.¹⁶ The same appraisal, done at inheritance, documents the stepped-up basis that heirs rely on if they later sell.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Whats New Estate and Gift Tax
2
Justia. Georgia Code 53-2-1 – Rules of Inheritance When Decedent Died Without a Will
3
Justia. Georgia Code 53-3-5 – Filing Petition for Years Support
4
Justia. Georgia Code 48-5-7.4 – Preferential Assessment for Bona Fide Conservation Use Property
5
Georgia Department of Revenue. Georgia Forest Land Protection Act
6
Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Code 560-11-11 – Forest Land Protection
7
Georgia Secretary of State. Subject 560-11-6 Conservation Use Property
8
Evans Estate Law Resources. Official Inflation Adjustments for 2026
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2032A Valuation of Certain Farm Real Property
10
Center for Agricultural Profitability. Estate Planning Stepped-Up Tax Basis
11
Center for Agricultural Profitability. Ideas for Estate and Transition Planning Life Insurance Inheritance Equalization
12
Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation. Key Documents for the Farm Transition Management and Buy-Sell Agreements
13
Farm Service Agency. Deceased Person
14
USDA Farm Service Agency. Instructions for Completing an FSA-211 Power of Attorney for an Individual
15
Forsyth County Clerk of Superior Court. Real Estate
16
American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, Inc. Become a Rural Appraiser