Ask Me: Episode 2

In this "Ask Me" episode, agricultural attorney Amanda Carl answers questions submitted by listeners. Topics in this episode include the rights of bona fide agricultural operations under Section 604.50, Florida Statutes, including permitting, as well as succession planning for agricultural operations.  This episode contains such great content, and you will not want to miss out!

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Amanda Perry Carl 0:02

Welcome to the Legal Skills Podcast, where we discuss legal and regulatory topics that are of critical importance to the agriculture industry. My name is Amanda Perry Carl, and I am an agricultural lawyer whose family has been farming in Florida since 1823, before Florida even became a state. I have spent almost 20 years as an attorney in the agricultural industry, and made it my mission to ensure that everyone in our incredible industry understands the legal and regulatory issues that we face so that we can keep feeding Florida, America, and the world. So if you are a farmer, rancher, or grower, if you are involved in raising cattle, sheep, poultry, goats, hogs, horses, or other livestock. If you grow fruits, vegetables, or sod, if you are involved with the aquaculture, turf grass, or verticulture industry, if you are fighting the good fight to help our citrus industry survive, or if you just like to eat and you appreciate our ag producers, this podcast is for you. If you are interested in protecting and preserving our agricultural heritage, lands, and way of life, then come join us in the legal field and see what's growing on. These ask me episodes air the second Thursday of each month, and on these episodes, I try my best to answer all of your questions. If you have any questions that you would like for me to answer during an ask me segment, please email them to me at Amanda at FloridaAg Law.com. That's Amanda at S L O R I D A A G L A W dot com. Now before we get started with this ask me episode, I have to provide some legal disclaimers. The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is not intended to create any relationship. It does not constitute an attorney-client relationship, and you should not act upon any information provided without seeking professional legal counsel tailored to your specific situation. We recommend consulting with a qualified attorney for advice in any particular legal matter. So now that that stuff is out of the way, some of our listeners have submitted some really great questions, and I'm going to take some time to answer a couple of those questions here today. I have received a lot of questions regarding whether folks with ag lands have to obtain building permits in Florida. We are definitely seeing a lot of local governments imposing fines or attempting to impose fines on property owners for failure to obtain permits. For ag lands, this is addressed by section six zero four point five zero of the Florida statutes, which provides, among other things, that quote, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, any non-residential farm building, farm fence, or farm sign that is located on lands used for bona fide agricultural purposes, not including those lands used for urban agriculture, is exempt from the Florida Building Code and any county or municipal code or fee except for code provisions implementing local, state or federal floodplain management regulations. The statute also provides that, quote, non-residential farm building means any temporary or permanent building or supposed support structure that is classified as a non-residential farm building on a farm under section five five three point seven three ten C, or that is used primarily for agricultural purposes, is located on land that is an integral part of a farm operation, or is classified as agricultural land under section one nine three point four six one and is not intended to be used as a residential dwelling. So if you have property that is used for bona fide agricultural purposes, for most instances, you will not have to obtain building permits under 604.50 for the construction of fences or non-residential buildings on your property. However, we are starting to see a lot of local governments that are going after the owners of agricultural properties. These properties oftentimes are engaged in bona fide agriculture. Yet the municipalities are forcing them or attempting to force them to comply with local codes, particularly the permitting process for building non-residential buildings. We are actually seeing counties imposing fines of $1,000 per day on farmers if they don't tear down these non-residential buildings, these barns, other types of buildings, which were not ever required to have permits under section 604.50 of the Florida statutes. Now, each situation is different, but if you're experiencing these issues where you've got a local government entity, a municipality that's telling you you need permits on your bona fide agricultural land, or if you're unsure of your rights under section 604.50 of the Florida statutes, I would encourage you to seek legal advice from an attorney well-versed in agricultural law. I've also received a lot of questions regarding succession planning and estate planning for agricultural companies and individuals in agriculture. I will say this. So often in agriculture, we fail to properly engage in success succession planning. Now, this can mean either estate planning or even succession of running the company upon retirement. When we fail to properly plan for succession, we often leave those behind us in shambles trying to figure out how to make things work. With estate planning, we leave those behind trying to figure out how to deal with taxes, how to deal with the operations and the expenses, figuring out who's going to run what within the business. And in the meantime, crops are needing to be harvested, products are needing to get to market, and your family is trying to figure out how to achieve achieve all of this while mourning the passing of their family member. And with retirement succession planning, often the lack of proper planning and training will result in either kids taking over the business and having no idea what to do, or so often it results in the older generation who's supposed to be retiring not ever truly retiring because they feel like they can't, because they haven't properly set up the next generation to succeed them and to do that that running of the business. So I try to have these conversations with clients on a regular basis. The beauty of the nature of what I do in being in the ag industry is that I get to know my clients personally and professionally and can have these real conversations with them. I often know their kids, their families, and their situations. And as awkward as this is and as hard as it is to think about your own mortality or what's going to happen when someone secedes you whenever you decide to retire, please don't shy away from the succession planning, whether it be retirement or estate planning. I would advise you to contact an attorney who's well versed in this and don't leave the next generation with a headache. This also helps in the protection of our farmlands overall because it will prevent a lot of these lands from being developed. If you've got the next generation coming in and they're dealing with all these burdens of taxes and operations and mourning the loss of their family member, or they're the next one coming in upon another family member's retirement, sometimes they just get overwhelmed and decide to sell these lands for development. So succession planning is so critical for the protection of our farmlands in this great state. Now that's all the time that we have today for our ask me episode. But if you have any other questions or topics that you want me to discuss in the next episode, which will be the second Thursday of January, please feel free to email those to me at Amanda at Floridaaglaw.com. Thanks and have a great day. Thank you for listening to the Legal Field Podcast. For more content, please visit the Facebook page of Florida Ag Law or go to FloridaAglaw.com and join us next time on the Legal Field Podcast to see what's going on.