An Executory Interest is a secondary or “back-up” easement holder of an easement held by another conservation organization. The executory interest holder ensures that
- the Grantee is fulfilling its responsibilities as the easement holder (including monitoring and resolving violations), and
- if the Grantee ceases to exist, the executory interest holder then becomes the Grantee.
It is the obligation of the executory interest holder to ensure that the grantee is monitoring the property and working to resolve any violations. When the Forest Society serves as an executory interest, we request annual monitoring reports to ensure the responsibilities are being met.
We send a reminder to every grantee interest holder in the fall explaining the reporting process. We prefer to receive reports through our online submission process but an Executory Interest Monitoring Form is available for those needing to print out and submit a paper copy. Monitoring reports for the prior year are due by January 15th.
Monitoring generally includes walking the boundaries, areas with high human use, places with exceptional conservation value, and locations that may be affected by specific reserved rights. Places visited may include woods roads, trails, structures and improvements, or locations of recent agricultural and forestry activities. In addition to walking the property, we encourage you to meet the landowner during ground monitoring visits. Meeting with the landowner to review the terms of the easement, discuss land use plans, and answer landowner questions will help foster a mutually beneficial relationship and prevent future problems.