A BILL for an Act to amend and reenact subsection 6 of section 11-18-02.2 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to exceptions for providing statements of full consideration.
Summary
HB 1271 would amend North Dakota Century Code section 11-18-02.2, which governs when deeds must include a statement of full consideration. The bill expands the list of transactions exempt from that disclosure requirement by adding deeds for agricultural land of less than 80 acres to the existing exceptions.
Under current law, the full-consideration statement requirement does not apply to a range of transactions such as transfers involving public utilities, personal property, same-family or corporate-affiliate sales, estate settlements, forced sales, religious or charitable transfers, change-of-use sales, quitclaim deeds used to correct title defects, and property not assessable by law. HB 1271 would place smaller agricultural land transfers into that same exempt category, meaning those deeds would not need to disclose the full consideration in the same way other property transfers do.
Impact
The bill would have narrowed the reach of North Dakota’s deed disclosure rules by exempting sales of agricultural land under 80 acres from the statute requiring statements of full consideration. That would affect county recording and property transfer practices, particularly for small farm parcels and rural land transactions, by reducing the amount of price information available in public records for those sales. Because the bill failed on the House floor, no change was made to existing disclosure law.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have received little support in the House, as reflected by its failure on second reading by a wide margin of 7 yeas to 80 nays. With no committee transcript available, there is no recorded floor or committee debate in the provided materials to suggest a strong coalition in favor of the proposal. The vote outcome indicates the prevailing sentiment was negative or at least strongly skeptical of expanding the exemption.
Contention
The central point of contention was whether small agricultural land sales should be exempt from the full-consideration disclosure requirement. Supporters likely viewed the change as a way to reduce reporting burdens for smaller farm transactions, while opponents likely saw it as reducing transparency in land records and limiting public access to sale-price information. The decisive floor vote suggests concerns about transparency outweighed any arguments for a narrower agricultural exemption.