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Securing Your Legacy on the Land, Part 4: Considerations when transferring your property

How does one begin the task of planning for the transfer of a family business, real estate and farm or ranch? What are some of most important issues one’s tax advisor is likely to bring up or address and how can you begin preparing now for those decisions? What are the most advantageous structures to use to pass on property to heirs at death? What are common mechanisms for passing on property while one is still alive? What are the tax and equity implications of these various strategies?

These questions and more are addressed in this fourth part of our 5 part succession planning for landowners series with Bank of America family office practice expert Howard Weiss. 

The Western Landowners Alliance and the authors reserve all copyrights on publications posted on our website unless otherwise noted. Please contact us for reprints or for special use requests.

Rock Weirs

Rock weirs are structures that act to slow water down in streams or ditches, decreasing erosion and creating habitat. Weirs offer low-tech solutions to issues that can plague landowners as they manage water crossing their land, and can be a powerful management tool. The strategic addition of rocks to streambeds creates turbulence and drag, which slows water down, reducing its capacity to carry sediment and erode the land. Weirs have been used as a water management tool for thousands of years, but the early 1900s saw a rise in their use for habitat and stream restoration.

Wolf Location Sharing: Finding Common Ground

Wolf Location Sharing: Finding Common Ground tackles one of the biggest challenges in wolf conservation and livestock management across the American West: how to share wolf location information in ways…

Supporting Wildlife by Supporting Private Lands

A Western Landowners Policy Guide Don’t make land or conservation policy without consulting the flowchart in this document! Private landowners are essential partners in wildlife conservation, as the vast majority…

A Wyoming Landowners Handbook to Fences and Wildlife, Third Edition (2025)

In this vital guide’s third edition, revised and updated in 2025, and published by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, building effective yet wildlife-friendly fencing is beautifully illustrated and clearly explained.

Building Trust

A guide for agencies working with producers to reduce wildlife conflicts Wildlife conflict on working lands can strain relationships between livestock producers and wildlife agencies, making trust crucial for conflict…

Wyoming-USDA Big Game Conservation Partnership Impact Report

A Partnership to Conserve Big Game Habitat in Wyoming. The roots of the Partnership were built from a Wyoming initiative that engaged stakeholders in conserving both wildlife migrations and the…

Restoring America: WLA’s Federal Policy Recommendations

Rural Economies • Land • Wildlife As landowners and land managers, we recognize that well-managed working lands are the cornerstones of both human communities and the ecosystems on which we…

Reducing Risk on the Range: Non-lethal Practices for Managing Carnivore-Livestock Conflicts

Non-lethal predation risk management practices, including range riding, carcass management,electric fencing/fladry, and associated practices can be incorporated into livestock productionsystems to benefit both agricultural operations and wildlife. These practices: This…

Expanding Human-Grizzly Bear Conflicts: The Situation, Challenges and Solutions

Grizzly bears are expanding their ranges into historic habitats outside of recovery zones, and much of the expansion is happening on private working lands and the urban wildland interface. Western…

Range Riding Producer Tool Kit

Range riding is a long-used and flexible practice, making it a beneficial conflict reduction tool for use in diverse, ever-changing western landscapes. The overarching goal of range riding for predator…

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