The Quick Version
- The 1031 identification rules allow forty-five days from transfer, ending midnight on the 45th. Hardship buys no extension outside a federally declared disaster.
- Your notice must be written, signed, and sent to a participant. Your own professionals do not count.
- Name three candidates at any price, or an unlimited slate capped at 200% of what you sold.
- Breach that cap and you named nothing, unless you acquire 95% of the slate.
- Georgia assesses ordinary property at 40% of value, so a Fannin card understates the 200% math 2.5 times. Covenant land breaks that shortcut.
Last updated August 2026.
Forty-five days is the whole allowance. That clock starts the day your relinquished cabin transfers and dies at midnight on the 45th. Inside it you must name what you intend to buy, in writing. You also choose between two counting limits: three properties at any price, or an unlimited slate capped at twice what you sold.
Owners file this under paperwork. It behaves like a sealed bid nobody lets you retract.
What are the 1031 identification rules?
Two deadlines, two limits. Treasury Regulation 1.1031(k)-1(b)(2) defines the naming window, which “begins on the date the taxpayer transfers the relinquished property and ends at midnight on the 45th day thereafter.”
The second shuts on whichever comes first: the 180th day, or your return’s due date with extensions attached. Both open together, and day 45 sits inside the 180, so hours burned deliberating are hours stolen from closing.
The IRS is blunt about mercy. Its like-kind exchange fact sheet says the limits “cannot be extended for any circumstance or hardship except in the case of presidentially declared disasters.” Illness will not budge it, nor a stalling lender, nor a vendor walking away on day 40.
One quiet grace applies. Close inside those 45 days and you satisfy the written requirement automatically, filing nothing.
How do you name a replacement so it counts?
In a signed writing, sent to the right hands, before midnight closes day 45. Regulation demands a document “signed by the taxpayer and hand delivered, mailed, telecopied, or otherwise sent.” It goes to whoever is obligated to convey the replacement, or another participant who is neither you nor a disqualified person.
That clause wrecks more exchanges than the calendar does. Your own attorney and accountant work for you, so notice to them is worthless. The intermediary warehousing your funds is the correct recipient. Route it there and archive the receipt.
Descriptive standards are exacting yet plain. The regulation calls real estate unambiguously described when pinned down by a legal description, street address, or distinguishable name. Around Fannin County that matters more than city sellers expect, since a good many tracts carry no assigned street address at all.
Pull the map and parcel number off the county card, never off an MLS sheet, where typos and stale acreage figures are routine. Georgia deeds are recorded with the Clerk of Superior Court, so whatever legal description you copy should match the recorded plat.
Unbuilt property gets an accommodation. Give the legal description of the underlying land, plus “as much detail is provided regarding construction of the improvements as is practicable at the time.”
Is the three-property rule or the 200% rule safer?
Three, nearly always. That option names three candidates “without regard to the fair market values of the properties,” stripping valuation out of the question.
The alternative permits any number, provided their combined worth at the window’s close stays inside 200% of everything relinquished.
Miscount and the penalty is absolute. Exceed your limit and you are “treated as if no replacement property had been identified.” The trade collapses into a taxable sale in the year you closed.
One escape hatch survives, and it is brutal. Before the exchange window shuts you must actually receive named real estate worth 95% of your whole slate. List eight cabins and you are buying nearly all eight.
Fixtures get a small mercy. Incidental items ride along with the main asset rather than counting separately, provided they normally transfer together and stay under 15% of its worth. Furnishings inside a rental cabin typically clear that bar.
How do you value property in the North Georgia mountains for the 200% test?
Never off the tax card. O.C.G.A. 48-5-7(a) pegs ordinary assessments at 40% of fair market value, so any figure on a Fannin County parcel record shows two-fifths of what the county believes. Divide by 0.40 before applying your ceiling.
The Department of Revenue treats fair market value as what “a knowledgeable buyer would pay” at arm’s length, and fixes that opinion as of January 1. For scale, Fannin’s 2025 net digest reached $3,307,906,388 countywide, taxed at 9.073 mills outside city limits.
One caveat carries real money: the shortcut works on ordinary parcels only. Covenant land is assessed against current-use value, not market value, whether the covenant is conservation-use, forest-land, or qualified timberland. Bona fide agricultural tracts fall to 30% of market value. Invert either class by 0.40 and your estimate balloons.
So read the covenant status printed on the card first. The Board of Tax Assessors keeps those records at 400 West Main Street, Suite 102, in Blue Ridge. Their cards carry administrative arithmetic, not offers. What you will owe each December appears in Fannin County property taxes.
What does the 200% ceiling look like on a $700,000 cabin?
Tighter than owners expect, once county figures get converted honestly. Below sit three ordinary residential candidates, none under covenant, rounded for illustration.
| Candidate named | Assessed on the parcel card | Implied market value (÷ 0.40) |
|---|---|---|
| Cabin A | $180,000 | $450,000 |
| Cabin B | $190,000 | $475,000 |
| Cabin C | $210,000 | $525,000 |
| Slate total | $580,000 | $1,450,000 |
| Ceiling on a $700,000 sale | — | $1,400,000 |
Skim the assessed column and the slate looks roomy. Convert it and you are $50,000 past the line, having named nothing at all. That same trio sails through the three-property option, where worth never enters the test.
Can you change your mind after sending the list?
Yes, until midnight on day 45, and only on paper. Withdrawal counts solely when “made in a written document signed by the taxpayer and hand delivered, mailed, telecopied, or otherwise sent before the end of the identification period” to whoever received the original. Phone calls revoke nothing.
I’m Thomas Echea, and I own homes in Blue Ridge and Fort Lauderdale, so I have watched this window from both chairs at a closing table. What works is a conservative slate sent early, withdrawn and replaced if something better surfaces on day 30. Sitting on a blank page until day 44 is how buyers end up naming a tract they never walked.
Past midnight the slate freezes; purchases come off it. Whether a given tract even belongs there is a separate question, handled in what qualifies for a 1031 exchange.
What happens to the 45-day clock in a federally declared disaster?
It slides, by 120 days or to the end of the announced relief period, whichever lands later. Revenue Procedure 2018-58, section 17, postpones both deadlines when they fall on or after the disaster date. The slide stops at your return’s due date with extensions, or at one year.
North Georgia has already leaned on it. After Hurricane Helene the IRS declared that “individuals and households that reside or have a business in all 159 counties qualify”, pushing dates on or after September 24, 2024 out to May 1, 2025. Fannin sits inside that count.
Eligibility still takes proving. You must have conveyed the relinquished tract on or before the disaster date, and be either an affected taxpayer under the announcement or genuinely hampered because the real estate, or a party, sits inside the covered zone. Ask your CPA to paper that reason contemporaneously, not two years later under audit.
How the money actually travels, and where the 180-day close lands, is mapped in how a 1031 exchange works when you sell a rental. The tax you are postponing is unpacked in depreciation recapture. None of this is tax or legal advice. Bring a credentialed CPA in before you sign.
Frequently asked questions
When does the 45-day identification period start?
It opens the moment you convey the relinquished asset and shuts at midnight on the forty-fifth day. The longer 180-day runway opens simultaneously, not afterward, so hesitation up front costs you room at the far end.
How many properties can you identify in a 1031 exchange?
Three, whatever they cost, under the three-property option. Or as many as you like, provided combined market worth at the deadline stays within twice the aggregate of everything surrendered.
What happens if you identify too many properties?
You are treated as having named nothing, and the swap unravels into a taxable sale. A single reprieve exists. Acquire, before the exchange window shuts, named assets worth 95% of your entire slate, and the excess is ignored.
Who do you send the identification to?
Whoever is obligated to convey the replacement, or another participant who is neither you nor a disqualified person. Usually the qualified intermediary. Handing it to somebody acting on your behalf, such as your own lawyer or accountant, accomplishes nothing.
How specific does the property description have to be?
Unmistakable. The regulation treats descriptors such as a legal description, a street address, or a distinguishable name as generally sufficient. Those three are a safe harbour, not the only wording that works. If construction has not finished, supply the legal description of the underlying acreage plus whatever detail on planned improvements is practicable.
Can you revoke a 1031 identification?
Yes, though only while the naming window remains open, and only through a signed writing delivered the same way, to the same recipient, as the original. Once midnight passes on day 45 your slate locks, and purchases must come from it.
Can the 45-day deadline be extended?
Only through a federally declared disaster. Otherwise the IRS states the limits cannot be extended for any circumstance or hardship. Revenue Procedure 2018-58 grants affected taxpayers 120 days, or the close of the announced relief period if later, subject to a ceiling at the return due date with extensions, or one year.
Should you use the assessed value on a Fannin County parcel card for the 200% rule?
Not unadjusted, and never for covenant land. Georgia assesses ordinary property at 40% of fair market value, so dividing an ordinary card figure by 0.40 approximates the county’s view of worth. Conservation-use, forest-land, and qualified-timberland parcels sit on current-use value instead, and bona fide agricultural tracts at 30%. Even where the shortcut works, the output is an administrative estimate frozen at January 1, not an appraisal.
