A buyer looking at bare or planted acreage along Durham's back roads will notice something strange after a week of comparing listings. Two parcels can sit less than a mile apart, similar soil, similar road frontage, and the price per acre on one can run a third of the other. The instinct is to assume the cheaper parcel is a better deal, maybe undervalued, maybe a motivated seller. Sometimes that is true. Another possibility is that the parcel is under a Williamson Act contract, which does not expire when the deed changes hands.
This matters because the contract is not a disclosure item you can shrug off after closing. It runs with the land. Whoever owns the parcel next inherits it, restrictions and all, the same way they inherit the property tax bill it was written to lower.
How To Check for a Williamson Act Contract
The Williamson Act, formally the California Land Conservation Act of 1965, lets a landowner trade full development rights for a much lower property tax bill. Instead of being assessed on what the land could sell for, a contracted parcel is assessed on what it earns as farmland, an income-based number that is almost always smaller. Butte County leans on this program hard. The Gridley Herald reported that, as of a June 2026 presentation to the Board of Supervisors, the county had nearly 1,500 parcels covering more than 200,000 acres enrolled, a footprint that touches a meaningful share of the orchard ground around Durham.
The trade-off is real. According to the California Department of Conservation, a Williamson Act contract is an enforceable restriction that runs with the land and binds every future owner, not just the person who signed it. If you buy a contracted parcel planning to build a second home, a shop, or anything not tied to farming, you are not negotiating with the seller. You are stepping into an agreement the county already made with someone else, years ago, on terms you did not set.
The quickest way to check whether a parcel is under a Williamson Act contract is to ask your agent or the title company to confirm its status.
Paths Out, Neither Quick
If a buyer wants that land free and clear of the restriction, state law provides ways to seek release, each with costs and timelines to consider.
| Path | What happens | Cost to the landowner |
|---|---|---|
| Nonrenewal | File a notice that stops the automatic yearly renewal. The contract does not end immediately, it winds down while taxes rise in steps. | No fee, but The Gridley Herald reports that Butte County shortened its contract term from ten years to nine when it adopted AB 1265 in 2012, so the phase-out takes roughly nine years. |
| Cancellation | Petition the county for immediate cancellation. The California Department of Conservation says the Board of Supervisors can only approve it if specific legal findings are met, and wanting a better return on the land is not enough on its own. | A cancellation fee equal to 12.5 percent of the land's unrestricted fair market value under AB 47, doubling for stricter Farmland Security Zone contracts, as Kassouni Law explains. |
Neither option is something you do after close because you changed your mind. Both require a public process, and cancellation in particular is rare precisely because the bar is high and the fee is large. If your plans for a piece of Durham acreage depend on getting out of a Williamson Act contract within a year or two of buying it, that plan needs to be tested against these numbers before you write the offer, not after.
The County Just Fought About This Over The Summer
This is not a dusty program nobody looks at anymore. Butte County's Board of Supervisors spent real time on it in 2026, and the fight tells you how much money is actually moving through these contracts.
Since 2012, the county has collected a direct charge equal to 10 percent of each landowner's Williamson Act tax savings, a mechanism created after the state stopped reimbursing counties for the revenue they lose on contracted land. Landowners keep the other 90 percent of the benefit. That 10 percent still adds up. Deputy CAO Kevin Taggart told the Board in June 2026 that the charge generates about $650,000 a year for the county's general fund, money that helps pay for public safety and library services restored under Measure H.
Farmers pushed back hard the year before. At an October 2025 meeting, Gridley farmer Ryan Schohr told supervisors that rising equipment sales taxes and the ag surcharge together were squeezing growers, at one point referencing a $10,000 increase on a single combine purchase tied to Measure H's rate change. The Board didn't repeal the charge. Taggart later warned that scrapping it now would mean cutting positions across the sheriff's office, probation, the DA's office, and libraries, and that doing so would contradict the promises made when voters approved Measure H in the first place.
No formal vote changed anything in either meeting. That is the point worth sitting with. The Williamson Act's tax benefit and the county's cut of it are both live, contested, and unresolved going into the next budget cycle, which means the math a Durham landowner does today could shift again before the decade is out.
The Program Is Still Growing, Not Shrinking
Some readers might assume a program built in 1965 is winding down as farmland gets sold off. Butte County's own agenda record says otherwise. At its July 28, 2026 meeting, the Board approved two new parcels into Williamson Act contracts for almond orchard use, both reviewed and recommended by the county's Land Conservation Act Advisory Committee the month before. Neither parcel had been under a contract previously. Two more, added to the roughly 1,500 already there.
The paperwork behind these enrollments is more specific than most buyers expect. One Butte County walnut orchard enrollment file, reviewed by the same advisory committee, shows a 31.32-acre parcel with a house on it, sitting inside the county's Agricultural Preserve No. 1, and qualifying because it exceeded the 20-acre minimum required for orchard production contracts. That is the level of detail the county checks before a contract is approved, and it is the same level of detail a title company or the county's Development Services Department can pull for you before you commit to a purchase.
Durham sits inside orchard country where almond, walnut, and other permanent-crop parcels are common along roads like Midway Road, the kind of ground where these enrollments happen regularly. A parcel's contract status is one factor to consider when comparing its price per acre.
What To Check Before You Write An Offer
- Ask your agent or title company to confirm whether the parcel is under a Williamson Act contract.
- If it is, ask whether a notice of nonrenewal has already been filed. If so, the contract is already winding down, which changes both the future tax bill and what the land can eventually be used for.
- Get a title report or preliminary title report early.
- Compare your intended use for the property against the "compatible use" rules for contracted land.
- If exiting the contract is part of your plan, run the nonrenewal timeline or the 12.5 percent cancellation fee against your budget before the purchase, not after.
A Few Questions We Hear Often
Does the Williamson Act contract end when the property sells? No. It stays with the parcel and transfers to the new owner automatically. The buyer takes on the same restrictions and the same tax treatment the seller had.
If I want out immediately, is cancellation always an option? Only if the Board of Supervisors makes specific findings required by state law, and simply wanting a different use for the land is not enough on its own. That is why most owners who want out choose nonrenewal instead, even though it takes years.
Orchard acreage around Durham can be a genuinely good long-term hold, and plenty of buyers are looking for exactly this kind of land. The point isn't to avoid contracted parcels. It's to know which parcels carry the contract before the price convinces you the decision is already made. If you're comparing Durham acreage and want someone to pull the assessor records and title history before you get attached to a number, Connect Real Estate Group can walk through it with you. Let's Chat.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
