In an effort to minimize suburban sprawl, several Maryland counties, Charles, Howard, Montgomery and Talbot Counties have crated Transfer Development Rights on larger agriculture parcels located in the more rural area of these counties. The TDR process allows landowners with TDR rights the ability to sell these development rights, while still retaining full ownership of their farm and fields.
In a TDR sale, a land developer purchases the TDR rights from the landowner for an agreed upon price per acre. The land developer, after filing the property paperwork with the respective county, is able to transfer the development potential of the transferring property to another property already owned by the land developer within the same county in an area designated as the receiving zone. This TDR transfer increases the development density of the second property, the receiving parcel, which will ultimately be developed into a residential subdivision. The sending property is then placed into a county sponsored preservation program where it is still owned by the landowner, who is able to live on, farm, hunt on or otherwise use this land, but is prohibited from developing this property in the future.
We represent landowners looking to selling their TDR rights as well as buyers of these rights throughout Maryland where this program is offered. When representing the seller of TDR’s, we will keep you informed of the various steps required by the buyer to affect a transfer prior to settlement of these right. Typically, the TDR process takes 6 or months for the various steps to be completed by the Buyer at the Buyer’s expense. |
