Real Estate Donation: Land Plot Donated To Charity

When my father passed away suddenly I was surprised to discover that he had a small plot of land that he owned back in his hometown.

All throughout my childhood my father always spoke fondly of his home town and even took us to visit there once. Yet, he never mentioned that he actually owned a small plot of land there. When I learned about this small piece of real estate, I had to go see it for myself. This tiny plot of land was completely overgrown with weeds and brush and had obviously not been cared for in a very long time.

This left me with many unanswered questions. Had my father forgotten about this little piece of real estate? Did he have plans for the land? Why hadn’t he ever told me about this little plot of land that he owned?

Ultimately, my husband and I decided that there was no real need to hang on to the property. Although my father’s home town was special to him, we knew that we would never do anything with this little plot of land – it would just sit there and continue to be the eyesore it had already become. So, we decided it was best to get rid of the land.

In my heart it just didn’t feel right to try and sell the land plot for a profit, especially right after my father’s passing. The land was located in a small rural community in a state over 800 miles away so it really didn’t hold much value in terms of real estate. I knew I wouldn’t have the time or the energy to clean up the property and to try and deal long distance with a realtor in order to sell it.

That’s when my husband and I started to look into the possibility of donating the land plot to charity. What better way to honor my father, we thought, then by making a land donation in my father’s name?

As we started to do a bit of research, we found that it was more difficult than we had imagined finding an organization that would take the land as a donation.

Finally, of all places, we discovered that there were a number of donation service centers where people could donate a car to charity and fortunately the car donation service center also accepted land donations as well.

We contacted one of car donation service centers and the land donation process could not have been any easier.

We learned from the car donation representative that the land plot would first be cleaned up and made to be more presentable as a piece of real estate. In this way, the donated land plot could possibly be sold for closer to market value and perhaps raise even more money for charity.

The proceeds received from selling the real estate property would then be donated to a not-for-profit charitable organization that was associated with the car donation service center. The car donation company even allowed us to designate which charity we would want to receive the land donation proceeds.

I know that my father would have been proud of us for what we did with his little plot of land. In my father’s honor, we decided to have the land donation proceeds go towards helping veterans, since my father was a veteran himself. The National Veterans Services Fund is a great non-profit organization and I know my father would have approved our decision to help the NVSF.

The car donation representative also told us about a little surprise that we hadn’t expected – we could write off the land donation to charity on our taxes.

With my father’s life insurance and the other money we received as a result of his passing, we were a bit concerned about our taxes to begin with. So, being able to write off the land donation actually helped to save us a substantial amount in taxes.

Hopefully, with the help from the money raised through our land donation, some day, some where, some other daughter may be lucky enough to keep her father in her life for just a little bit longer.