Three events I’d like to share…

1. Many years ago (in the mid-1980s), I lived in central Utah (Sanpete Co. – Mt. Pleasant). LDS Corp had an old Bishop’s Storehouse for sale there. It would have made a fantastic home, if it was remodeled right. I looked at it, and decided to make an offer (which was only a little less than their asking price).

When I made the offer and the real estate broker drew up the proposal (with the terms, etc.), he informed me that the Corp was retaining the mineral rights to the property. I said I’d like to but it outright and completely, without any possible encumbrances or limitations on the land. He said that this was standard operating procedure with LDS Corp, and that they “always” retained the mineral rights on any of the land they sell. It was a take-it-or-leave-it condition for the Corp. I somehow doubt if LDS Corp would buy property itself under those same stipulation (i.e., not including mineral rights).

I did not end up getting the property (long story), but I’ve always thought that might be a smart business practice for a company that buys and sells a lot of property. Does anyone have any current information if the Corp still engages in such practices?

2. I lived in Jerome, Idaho, for several years (a long time ago). At one point, the school district built their high school outside of town on a piece of former agricultural property. Of course, LDS Corp quickly built a seminary building across the street.

I found out later from a real estate broker there how LDS Corp did it. He told me that the Corp had purchased not just the amount of land needed for their building, but they had bought the entire agricultural field that was across the street from the school (perhaps 60 to 80 acres). The Corp then got this entire property re-zoned from agricultural to residential (and whatever else they needed for their building). The Corp surveyed, subdivided, and platted the land for residential homes, and sold the vast majority of the property (everything except what was needed for their seminary building) to a developer who in turn sold individual lots to home builders and buyers. The broker told me that the act of rezoning and subdividing the land increased its value so much that the Corp made a very handsome profit, and were able to recoup all of their costs and build their seminary building totally from the profit.

Smart business practice, I thought.

3. When living in Jerome, Idaho, I once wrote articles for their local newspaper company, which published for the Jerome, Lincoln, and Gooding counties. At one point, I decided to write an article about church-owned property in the area, and whether they paid property taxes for their holdings. I went to each assessor’s office and combed through all of their property tax assessment records (these counties are relatively small, and the records were printed on single-spaced large sheets (11x17?) bound in large books). I spent several hours in each office, noting every church-owned property I could find.

My results showed that LDS Corp was by far the largest land-owner in that area of all the churches. With one exception, all of the other churches owned only the land for their church buildings, and some also had a home for their pastor or preacher. These were all exempt from property tax. The one exception was a large parcel of agricultural land owned by the Ascension Priory (Catholic) east of Jerome. They told me that they just rent this land out to a farmer, and they concentrate their efforts on activities within the priory itself.

I also found that LDS Corp owned many churches and seminary buildings, all of which were tax-exempt. However, they also had many parcels of farmland in all three counties. At that time, the Corp was paying property taxes on all of their properties that were not part of a church or seminary building. This is what happened then in Idaho – I don’t know if this same policy was/is in effect for Utah.

During this research, however, two interesting things came up. I noticed that there were at least two – and maybe three – different corporation names for the LDS Corp holdings. If I recall correctly, one was Corp of Presiding Bishopric and another was Corp of the President, etc., etc. As part of the article, I also contacted LDS Corp offices in SLC. They were good to return my call (maybe because it was from a newspaper). One of their public relations spokespersons answered my questions or would “get back with me” on others. It was interesting, however, that this spokesperson – after doing research on his end – told me that LDS Corp didn’t own any property (other than with church buildings) in Lincoln County. I had my list in front of me, and I said, “Well, you’re paying property taxes on a lot of land there.” I believe there was at least a half-dozen agricultural properties listed with the Corp there. He had no answer. It appeared to me that they didn’t really know how much land they own.

In Utah, they own a ton of land!

Can you just imagine how much land they own world wide?
I wonder if it comes close to rivalling the Catholics?

Another entity through whom they purchase, own land: Property Reserve Inc.

Search for that. I was surprised when I found how much they own under that "little" business wing.

That may have been the case, since I was not privy to any 'holding' companies that LDS Corp may have been using at the time. I only looked for owners' names that I could definitely identify as a church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zions_Securities

Here is the REIT of LDS, Inc.

Can you just imagine what could happen with the school system in UT if the LDS Church paid property taxes on all the land they own in Utah and that money went into the schools? After all, their members create the large number of students we have in Utah's schools.

Are the agricultural and other land holdings (not directly associated with a chapel or stake building, or a Deseret Industries asset) actually exempt from property taxes in Utah? I had thought they might be in Idaho, which is why I actually checked.

gemini Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can you just imagine what could happen with the
> school system in UT if the LDS Church paid
> property taxes on all the land they own in Utah
> and that money went into the schools? After all,
> their members create the large number of students
> we have in Utah's schools.


Or Idaho as well??

Joe & L Ron had the Same Dentist.

BY began selling land and withholding the mineral rights to it, in Utah, the church own the mineral rights to just about every inch of land ever sold.

I have started a blog about L.D.S. real estate division practices both positive and negative. Please consider sending this and other stories to:

ldsrealestatestories@gmail.com

the blog is

ldsrealestatestories.blogspot.com

Thank you!

BY was way down on those gentile miners, was he not? Was known as by far the greediest PS&R the Morg ever had.

Im betting that ag land in Utah & ID isn't taxed at more than a nominal rate; both states have a rep for doing Everything on the cheap, which they've passed on as a tid-bit to farmers.

My aunt owned the funeral home in Mt. Pleasant. I spent many Christmas's there....

Ron Burr

Wow they really have their methods down to a science. It makes me wonder how they could make such a bad investment like City Creek. I don't see how they can ever make back the billions they poured into that place. Maybe it really isn't an investment at all. Maybe they just didn't want to look at an ugly mall across the street and were willing to pay whatever it took to make it look pretty and to keep poor people out of the area.

I think it was an emotional decision based on the need to keep the riff-raff out of the inner city, which was just a regular urban city with the usual characters on the corners.

Living in the area just before the City Creek decision was made, I remember reporters camping out at a hotel across the street and filming drug deals going down with the temple in the background. There was lively discussion about how to handle panhandling. A homeless person (used to be called hobos) froze to death in the bushes outside Little America. You can just imagine the horror of the sainted gerontocracy realizing that urban blight existed in Zion.

Instead of dealing with it smartly, like Seattle did, the uninspired prophets, seers and revelators just do what rich people always do, they just throw money at the problem. They bought Main Street (nowhere else in the country could THAT happen) and threw all those small businesses/restaurants out.

Replacing them is an over-securitied shopping center that is mostly empty of customers yet curiously none of the stores go out of business. Their lone counter person stands there watching the twos and threes walk by. And this is on a Saturday! My impression was that most of the people there were tourists. And maybe that was the idea. Replace the homeless with shoppers.

It's what Jesus would do.


Anagrammy

In the original post I was struck by the symbiotic nature of LDS real estate deals and local zoning boards.

This is what happens when you want to build a seminary building and your church controls the local zoning board. (They probably gave worthy mormons the building contracts for the seminary and the subdivision as well.)

Diversity is a good thing. Homogenous cultures, not so good.

I've noticed that, in the morridor at least, mormons control school boards, boards of education, water rights, zoning boards, and all other regulatory bodies related to development -- this mormon control is the norm even in communities where they are not a majority of the population. It is rare to see an exception.

Very interesting!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, most land was originally owned by a big timber company like Weyerhauser. As they sell it off around urban areas and turn it into subdivisions, they also keep the mineral rights. These very large corporations engage in all sorts of politics to get favorable conditions for turning land into high density housing. LDS Inc undoubtedly operates exactly the same way.

We had someone else here a few years ago who had researched land owners and they also found a wide variety of names for the property owners of record, and big patchwork of parcels in their area.

Other churches stick to schools and healthcare services; which they can argue involves spreading the gospel and charity through educating some poor people, and healing some poor people, while making a profit on thoie who can pay.

Ragnar, I live in Jerome currently. Your story is interesting though I have nothing to add.

Just curious, is your screen name from the Ragnar races, Atlas Shrugged, or something else?

It's from my ethnic background. I originally hail from the North.

All hail, Ásatrú!

I'm not a business man of any sorts, but I am of the opinion that there are very few church's who take in 6B tax free p/annum. Seems like a lot of play money for the Q15.

They may have major holdings in other countries too, but here are the ones I have heard about:
Huge farm/ranch in western (Lincoln County?) Nebraska

Deseret Ranch near Orlando - some has been sold off as subdivisions, original size 330,000 acres, roughly the size of the entire Salt Lake Valley

Big ranches in Wyoming, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, and of course, Utah

Big farms in Brazil and Argentina, and Australia.

And of course, great gobs of mineral rights. How much you want to bet there will never be any Utah laws against fracking?

Interesting comments, everyone, on this original and once-resurrected post/topic.

The point I was making is that LDS Corp operates as a business - a well-run business. It seeks to maximize income, hold and control assets, and squeeze every nickel, dime, and penny out of every asset and minimize every expenditure within its control. As a business, its practices appear to be doing quite well.

This leads me to the conclusion that the greatest harm that could come to the Corp is to limit/reduce its income. It's the money that's most important to them. I just hope that enough people can come to the point where they 'see the light' and stop contributing their cash, time, labor, and estates to this company. The people can greatly benefit from their own cash and labor, not to give it away to an underserving cause and company.