Application Questionnaire

When your land trust submits its application, it attests that "the material provided in this application is an accurate reflection of our organization’s policies and operations." When reviewing an application, the Commission review team compares the application responses to the supporting documentation.

There are two types of application questions to pay particular attention to when you are filling out the application.

1. Questions that require a land trust to disclose its activities over a period of time, such as whether an audit, review, or compilation was obtained or whether it paid above the value listed in the appraisal or letter of opinion.

2. Questions that require the land trust to disclose instances where it was not able to show it followed the Standards and/or accreditation requirements.

   In the first-time accreditation application, there are questions that ask about a land trust’s recent practices, with a focus on the reporting activities in the past five years.

In the renewal application, the questions focus on activities over the accredited term. (At first renewal, the accredited term begins as of the date specified in the accreditation summary of findings and license agreement. At subsequent renewals, the reporting period for the accredited term begins as of the date of the renewal summary of findings.)

Considering the application questions now can help your land trust consider what information it will need to collect and report on for what period of time and keep track of that information; this will make it easier to complete the application.

Your statements and answers to the questions in the application should be clear and candid. You should do what you can to help a reader who does not know about your land trust understand the work you are doing. Do not be concerned about getting the “right” answer. The Commission recognizes that there is a diversity of approaches in how each land trust implements the Standards and accreditation requirements. The key is that they are being implemented and you can document how it is done at your land trust.

If your land trust recently adopted new policies, your application must include evidence that the policies are being implemented. You may either provide documentation that your practices were in place before being formalized in a policy or show documentation of how the new policy is implemented.

The review team uses the sampled projects and documentation in the application to verify the land trust’s compliance with the accreditation requirements. It is beneficial when an applicant accurately responds to each question and, as needed, provides any explanation and documentation related to unique circumstances or lapses. Alternatively, the review process is substantially more time-intensive when an applicant inaccurately (knowingly or not) responds to a question, at which point the review team must follow up to understand what and how deep the issues are.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the land trust to demonstrate that it has met the accreditation requirements over the accredited term.

Example: Let's explore what can happen when a question is accurately answered versus answered inaccurately using use the question in the Transactions section: Over the accredited term, has your land trust paid more than the value stated in the appraisal or letter of opinion when purchasing a conservation fee property or conservation easement? If yes, how many times?

Disclosure:

• A land trust did pay above appraised value twice over the accredited term. For the most recent project, the land trust submitted the project memo it provided to the board prior to the approval of the transaction as part of the application. The memo outlined how paying 11% over the appraised value was justified based market factors not included in the appraisal, including a higher bona fide offer letter from a third party. The memo also included the land trust’s analysis showing how the land trust concluded there was no impermissible private benefit because the public benefit gained of adding access to an existing preserve outweighed any incidental private benefit.

• The land trust did not have to provide any additional documentation.

Non-Disclosure:

• A land trust did not disclose that it paid above value for the one transaction over the term. It responded "no” to the question in the application and did not include any additional information.

• By chance, the project where the land trust paid above appraised value was selected for review and again the land trust did not disclose it paid above value.

• Because the land trust did not disclose the information in the main application or as part of the project documentation, the review team had to issue the following documentation request to the land trust.

1. Please provide the documentation justifying the purchase price for more than the appraised value, contemporaneous to the transaction, including documentation of a) the property's unique conservation values and the public interest the property serves and b) legal advice and/or an analysis of the risk of conferring impermissible private benefit (such as with contemporaneous trend data for market appreciation, range of value of similar purchases, market factors not covered in the appraisal). (If the land trust does not have documentation contemporaneous to the transaction, evaluate the transaction retroactively as noted and provide documentation as part of the response to this request.)

2. Review all transactions completed since accreditation was last awarded to determine how many fee properties and/or conservation easements were purchased at a price above value. Provide a chart reporting the appraised value and amount paid for each.

3. Provide a policy or procedure that documents how the land trust will ensure compliance with the requirement in the future.

Your land trust can avoid this lengthy and complex additional information request by completing each question accurately and with full disclosure.

A land trust may have substantially changed its practices in the last few years. If this is the case, you may want to note when substantial changes were made so that reviewers can understand differences between application answers and project documentation. It helps to be candid; if you have past projects that would not be done the same way today, explain what would be different.