Agriculture & Farm Succession in Central Illinois

We come from a farming family. We understand the ground, the equipment, the rented acres, the landlord-tenant handshake that has held for thirty years, and the worry that keeps a farmer up at night: what happens to the operation when I'm gone, and which of my kids will still be speaking to each other afterward.

A farm is not a stock portfolio you can split five ways with a spreadsheet. It is land, machinery, grain, leases, a name, and a way of life. Passing it on — or buying it, selling it, or defending it — takes legal work that respects how farming actually operates. At Marvel Law, we explain agricultural and succession issues in straight, direct, solution-driven terms, and we build a plan you can implement.

We meet you at our Bloomington office, at your kitchen table, or by phone, video, and secure document exchange anywhere in Central Illinois.

The Illinois estate tax — the trap farmland walks right into

Illinois imposes its own estate tax with an exclusion of just $4 million, and — unlike the federal system — Illinois does not allow portability between spouses. For a farm family, this is the figure that matters most: at today's land values, a few hundred tillable acres plus machinery and grain can cross $4 million before anyone thinks of themselves as wealthy. And because there is no portability, a married couple can permanently lose the first spouse's $4 million exclusion simply by leaving everything to the survivor without planning.

We address this with credit-shelter (bypass) trust planning to preserve both spouses' exclusions, lifetime gifting of land and entity interests, and — where the operation qualifies — federal §2032A special-use valuation, which can value farmland at its agricultural-use value rather than its highest-and-best-use value, and §6166 installment payment of estate tax tied to a closely held farm business. (This works hand in glove with our Estate Planning practice.)

Entities, buy-sell agreements, and keeping the operation whole

We commonly hold farmland and the farming operation in LLCs governed by a clear operating agreement, paired with a buy-sell agreement. Done right, this lets you gift interests gradually, keep land in the family, set a fair price and a funding mechanism if an owner dies or wants out, and stop a divorcing or disgruntled heir from forcing a sale of the ground. (See Business Law.)

Equalizing on-farm and off-farm heirs

The hardest conversation in most farm families is fairness between the child who stayed to farm and the children who built lives elsewhere. Splitting the land equally often forces a sale or saddles the on-farm heir with absentee co-owners. We use tools that keep the operation intact while treating everyone fairly: giving farmland to the on-farm heir and other assets (or life insurance) to the others, cash-rent or crop-share leases that let off-farm heirs share income without controlling operations, options and rights of first refusal, and installment sales that let the next generation buy in over time on terms the operation can actually carry.

Coordinating energy-lease income

Wind, solar, and battery leases now run thirty to fifty years and can outlast the people who signed them. We make sure that lease income, and the lease obligations, are tied correctly into your entity and your succession plan — so the payments land where you intend and the agreement doesn't blow up a future sale, gift, or mortgage. (See Wind, Solar & Battery Energy Leases.)