Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a community property state, and the only one in the Midwest, so the Marital Property Act that took effect on 1 January 1986 made nearly everything a married couple acquires after that date marital property owned equally, whatever the deed or the paycheck says, with gifts and inheritances the main exceptions.

That matters at a sale because a spouse can hold a half interest in a house whose title carries only the other spouse’s name, and it matters more at a death, when the survivor’s own half is already theirs and only the decedent’s half passes.

The Managed Forest Law of 1985 is not an annual classification that can be dropped at will but a fixed contract.

An owner enrols a parcel of at least ten acres for either 25 or 50 years, follows a DNR-approved management plan, and pays acreage fees instead of ordinary property tax, with a five per cent yield tax on timber harvested.

Most enrolled land is open to public access for hunting, hiking, fishing and cross-country skiing, with no more than 160 acres per owner per municipality closed, so a buyer may be acquiring a parcel that strangers have a legal right to walk on.

When MFL land is sold, the new owner has to file a transfer within 30 days or the department withdraws the land and assesses a withdrawal tax against the seller.

That deadline runs from the closing rather than the tax year, and it is easily missed in an estate.

And the northern half of the state effectively stops selling in winter, which pushes an estate that settles in November into a decision about waiting until spring.