So You Want to Own Rural Land in Maryland: Basic Legal Issues for All Landowners Online Course

Rural areas in Maryland continue to see pressure from residents relocating to rural areas from the state’s urban areas. Many of these new residents may need help understanding the agriculture or agricultural practices they will now see. As a result of these pressures, many agricultural operators often have questions related to right-to-farm laws, recreational use, trespass, and liability due to livestock concerns.  At the same time, many of these new rural landowners often have questions related to legal concerns from the operations neighboring them related to right-to-farm laws.

This course will seek to educate new rural landowners and existing agricultural operators and provide resources for future educational efforts by Extension Educators aimed at new landowners. Specifically, we will focus on recreational use, Right-to-Farm laws, fence law, estate planning, landowner liability, including what happens if a trespasser gets hurt on your property, property rights, and agricultural leasing.

New in 2024, updated modules will focus on finding and interviewing agricultural law attorneys and legal risk management strategies, including the use of insurance.

To register for the course, please follow the steps below:

1. Create an Associated Account with the University of Maryland, by clicking here.
2.  Login in to elms.umd.edu to activate the account.
3. Once an Associated Account is created and activated by logging in, please email aglawclasses@umd.edu and let us know your email and the course you are registering for.
4. Once we get that, we will register you for the course.  Please be advised that enrolling you in the course may take us a day.

This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2023-70027-40447.

This original course is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2021‐70027‐34693, and is funded by the NE Risk Management Education Center.