Greenbelt saves tax now and bills you later
The Agricultural, Forest and Open Space Land Act of 1976 — everyone calls it Greenbelt — taxes qualifying land on present use rather than market value, at Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 67-5-1001 through 67-5-1012. Agricultural and forest classifications generally require at least fifteen acres, and no owner may enroll more than 1,500 acres in one county. When enrolled land converts to an ineligible use, § 67-5-1008 recaptures the taxes saved: the three preceding years for agricultural and forest land, five for open space. Absent a contrary term in the contract, the seller carries that rollback.
TVA may hold rights below your treeline
On the Tennessee River reservoirs, TVA frequently owns a flowage easement across the lower portion of a lakefront parcel — the recorded right to flood it — and the terms of that particular easement, not the deed alone, govern what can be done there. Separately, Section 26a of the TVA Act, 16 U.S.C. § 831y-1, requires TVA approval before anyone builds a dock, boathouse, ramp, seawall, fill, culvert or comparable obstruction along the river or its tributaries, with the regulations at 18 CFR Part 1304. A lot with an approved dock and a lot where none has ever been permitted price differently.
No state disclosure form reaches raw land
The Tennessee Residential Property Disclosure Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-5-201 and following, governs transfers of residential real property of not less than one and not more than four dwelling units. Vacant land has no dwelling, so the statutory form does not apply and there is nothing for you to fill out. That is not license to bury a known problem — misrepresenting a defect you know about carries the same consequences it always did. It does mean the work of establishing access, boundaries and buildability falls to whoever asks, which on unimproved ground is normally the buyer.
Slope and limestone decide what is buildable
The Valley and Ridge in East Tennessee and the limestone country through the middle of the state are karst: sinkholes, caves and springs sit beneath ordinary-looking pasture, and Tennessee holds more than ten thousand documented caves. A sinkhole changes septic siting, foundation design and stormwater, and it surfaces in a soil evaluation rather than on a plat. Grade compounds it — a steep parcel spends its budget on a driveway and a building pad before anything gets framed. Hillside and ridgetop rules are adopted locally, not statewide, so what a slope permits in one county it may not in the next.