This one-day seminar provides an overview of our extensive five-day certificate program and introduces the complex world of conservation easement valuation. Become familiar with the history, basic terminology, and documents associated with conservation easement appraisals. Learn about the problems that arise when valuing conservation easements under different scenarios and the concerns and controversies that exist. Examine highest and best use issues, valuation, and reporting requirements.

At the end of this seminar, participants should be able to:

• Recognize the relationship between ownership rights and conservation easements
  
• Understand the IRS distinctions relating to a qualified appraiser and a qualified appraisal
  
• Recognize that the before-and-after method is the preferred valuation technique for conservation easements
  
• Identify the differences between a highest and best use analysis, both before and after encumbrance with a conservation easement
  
• Distinguish between a conventional appraisal, a Yellow Book appraisal, and an IRS appraisal in conservation easement valuation assignments, and understand how the property to be appraised is determined under each type of appraisal
  
• Understand how each of the three approaches to value is applied and relied upon in the valuation of conservation easement

• Nonresidential real estate appraisers
  
• Assessors
  
• Land Trust Staff
  
• Attorneys