Estates and rural
We’re trusted advisors to a number of family and charitable estates. And we’re proud to have client relationships spanning decades, with deep experience of handling property transactions, registration of estates with the Land Registry, wills and inheritance planning, and increasingly commercial work, as estates seek new ways to diversify their estates beyond just farming.
We understand that the significant rise in land values, combined with the increasing diversification of enterprises carried on by many estates, has put the spotlight on ensuring you maximise eligibility for business property and agricultural property reliefs for inheritance tax purposes.
We provide a full range of services to agricultural, rural and estate clients including property, tax, charities, private client, litigation and commercial services.
Our estates and rural team, which includes two accountants, draws together experts from across the legal disciplines to build a holistic group of experts, skilled in supporting you with the complex administration of large estates. We’re particularly well-respected for our work handling large-scale national agricultural and rural land sale and purchase transactions, as well as complex trusts, companies and partnerships work.
We understand the wider objectives you have - underpinning our ongoing advice on tax structures, acting on development and refinancing projects and commercial arrangements in order to improve income for your estate.
Browne Jacobson is a member of the Country Landowners Association and Agricultural Law Association, attending meetings and playing an active role in involved in discussions on issues relevant to the wider sector and its impact on our clients.
"Browne Jacobson's work at the outset is precise, on scope and always appreciated. They are always willing to have a discussion in order to progress matters."
What we do
From financial and tax planning to the future succession of your business or estate, our team will work closely with you and other professionals to provide tailor-made solutions.
The team is ranked first for private client work for the Midlands by both Chambers UK and the Legal 500 and we are all members of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
Our goal is to guide you through the labyrinth of rules and legislation and alleviate your concerns. We do this through effective and timely planning to help you and your family preserve your estate.
Our services and advice include:
- The succession of family estates and businesses through generations, and related estate planning.
- Tax - primarily inheritance tax including agricultural and business property relief, capital gains and income tax.
- Setting up and restructuring trusts and all aspects of trust administration
- Agricultural and other family partnerships.
- Professional trustee services – either through an individual or our trust company Mowbray Trustees Limited.
- Specialist advice on commercial trusts.
- Family investment companies.
- Tax and legal advice for non-UK domiciled individuals.
- Trust and estate disputes.
- Probate and administering the estates of deceased individuals with complex business, agricultural and tax implications. Including estates involving overseas assets.
- Wills, including those with complex trust provisions, to help protect assets for the next generation.
- Powers of attorney and appointment of deputies. Dealing with the court of protection where a person has lost capacity.
Our property and agricultural team provide a full service to agricultural, rural and estate clients including advising on property, planning, development, litigation, and agricultural entitlements.
We have been trusted advisors to a number of family and charitable estates for several decades.
We handle their property transactions, registration of estates with the Land Registry and increasingly commercial and strategic work as estates seek new ways to diversify beyond existing farming enterprises.
Key facts about our team and the benefits we offer include:
Our clients
Trustees (from individuals through to corporate trustees and charity boards), entrepreneurs, landowners, investors, accountants, independent financial advisors, and other professionals, both onshore and offshore, including Wyggeston Hospital Estate, Belvoir Estate, Natural England, National Trust and the Environment Agency.
Our expertise
A team of specialist lawyers working nationally, including lawyers as members of the Country Landowners Association and Agricultural Law Association. We regularly attend their meetings and get involved in discussions on issues relevant to our clients.
Strategic development advice
On strategic land matters such as option promotion agreements, development agreements, planning permission, joint ventures and terminating agricultural tenancies.
Specialist agricultural advice
On maximising eligibility for business property and agricultural property reliefs for inheritance tax purposes, reviews of agricultural estates to optimise tax efficiency, negotiating transfer of reliefs and retentions in land transactions and regulatory advice.
Estate management
We advise on agricultural and estate management matters, including farm business tenancies, grazing licences, subsidy schemes, minerals and commercial leases.
We attend trustee and management meetings and offer focused advice relevant to individual requirements if required. In addition, we work collaboratively with other professionals such as accountants, agents and consultants.
We are members of the Country Landowners Association and Agricultural Law Association, through which we regularly attend meetings and get involved in discussions on issues relevant to our clients.
The UK food and drink sector is facing many challenges while the UK establishes its trading relationships with the European Union and further afield. Food and drink companies are also experiencing workforce shortages while keeping up with an ever changing regulatory landscape. Juggling pressures on profit margins created by supply chain issues and increases in the cost of utilities, combined with consumer demands for both convenience and long-term sustainability, means that companies must constantly invest in innovation and technology to keep up with competitors.
We act for major players in the food and drink industry. Our full-service team have a range of specialist sector knowledge from their experience of advising a range of clients from field to fork, including listed multinational food and drink manufacturers and distributors, national retailers, restaurant chains and CBD and supplement suppliers.
We deliver prompt and pragmatic advice to keep clients trading. We’ll help make sense of regulatory and compliance issues, while avoiding reputational risks of a product recall or quality issues. In addition, we assist with mergers and acquisitions, trading arrangements, brand protection, competition issues, property management and a variety of employment matters.
We regularly advise estates clients, individuals, trusts and charities on their corporate and commercial arrangements — including in relation to family offices, family investment companies, trusteeships over business interests and succession. For example, on the corporate side in addition to the support we provide in relation to transactions and funding, we advise high net worth individuals on a range of issues relating to their business interests from structuring or realising their investments through to succession issues in relation to owner managed businesses.
We also advise on the setting up and ongoing governance of family investment companies and angel investors on their investments in trading companies and in relation to the use of partnerships and LLPs. We also have a corporate trustee which acts as a trustee in many of our clients’ trust arrangements.
On the commercial side we advise on contracts and arrangements relating to any commercial activities carried out by our clients or activities relating to their properties, business, or assets.
Our criminal, compliance and regulatory team is well used to reacting to fatal and serious accidents which often raise issues covering police involvement, privileged internal investigations, disclosure to the HSE, access rights to documents and equipment, questioning of employees and contractors and the appeals against improvement and/or prohibition notices.
The team both prosecutes and defends, regularly supporting business and individuals in a wide range of sectors, including those within the agricultural sector.
This includes:
- Defending companies/partnerships and individuals facing gross negligence/ manslaughter investigations/ health and safety investigations involving commercial and farm related accidents. These could result in investigations by all types of linked government bodies including HSE, Environment Agency, BIS, DEFRA and HMRC.
- Alleged breaches of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.
- Acting for farmers and members of the shooting fraternity in firearms related offences; successful appeals to the crown court for firearms revocation cases.
- Advising on health and safety aspects applicable to commercial shoots.
- Local authority trading standards investigations involving milk contamination; animal tagging/ passport breaches; animal cruelty cases involving the importation/ sale/transportation of livestock; alleged breaches of the Food Hygiene Regs 2006; Egg and Chick Regs 2009.
From financial and tax planning to the future succession of your business or estate, our team will work closely with you and other professionals to provide tailor-made solutions.
The team is ranked first for private client work for the Midlands by both Chambers UK and the Legal 500 and we are all members of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).
Our goal is to guide you through the labyrinth of rules and legislation and alleviate your concerns. We do this through effective and timely planning to help you and your family preserve your estate.
Our services and advice include:
- The succession of family estates and businesses through generations, and related estate planning.
- Tax - primarily inheritance tax including agricultural and business property relief, capital gains and income tax.
- Setting up and restructuring trusts and all aspects of trust administration
- Agricultural and other family partnerships.
- Professional trustee services – either through an individual or our trust company Mowbray Trustees Limited.
- Specialist advice on commercial trusts.
- Family investment companies.
- Tax and legal advice for non-UK domiciled individuals.
- Trust and estate disputes.
- Probate and administering the estates of deceased individuals with complex business, agricultural and tax implications. Including estates involving overseas assets.
- Wills, including those with complex trust provisions, to help protect assets for the next generation.
- Powers of attorney and appointment of deputies. Dealing with the court of protection where a person has lost capacity.
Our property and agricultural team provide a full service to agricultural, rural and estate clients including advising on property, planning, development, litigation, and agricultural entitlements.
We have been trusted advisors to a number of family and charitable estates for several decades.
We handle their property transactions, registration of estates with the Land Registry and increasingly commercial and strategic work as estates seek new ways to diversify beyond existing farming enterprises.
Key facts about our team and the benefits we offer include:
Our clients
Trustees (from individuals through to corporate trustees and charity boards), entrepreneurs, landowners, investors, accountants, independent financial advisors, and other professionals, both onshore and offshore, including Wyggeston Hospital Estate, Belvoir Estate, Natural England, National Trust and the Environment Agency.
Our expertise
A team of specialist lawyers working nationally, including lawyers as members of the Country Landowners Association and Agricultural Law Association. We regularly attend their meetings and get involved in discussions on issues relevant to our clients.
Strategic development advice
On strategic land matters such as option promotion agreements, development agreements, planning permission, joint ventures and terminating agricultural tenancies.
Specialist agricultural advice
On maximising eligibility for business property and agricultural property reliefs for inheritance tax purposes, reviews of agricultural estates to optimise tax efficiency, negotiating transfer of reliefs and retentions in land transactions and regulatory advice.
Estate management
We advise on agricultural and estate management matters, including farm business tenancies, grazing licences, subsidy schemes, minerals and commercial leases.
We attend trustee and management meetings and offer focused advice relevant to individual requirements if required. In addition, we work collaboratively with other professionals such as accountants, agents and consultants.
We are members of the Country Landowners Association and Agricultural Law Association, through which we regularly attend meetings and get involved in discussions on issues relevant to our clients.
The UK food and drink sector is facing many challenges while the UK establishes its trading relationships with the European Union and further afield. Food and drink companies are also experiencing workforce shortages while keeping up with an ever changing regulatory landscape. Juggling pressures on profit margins created by supply chain issues and increases in the cost of utilities, combined with consumer demands for both convenience and long-term sustainability, means that companies must constantly invest in innovation and technology to keep up with competitors.
We act for major players in the food and drink industry. Our full-service team have a range of specialist sector knowledge from their experience of advising a range of clients from field to fork, including listed multinational food and drink manufacturers and distributors, national retailers, restaurant chains and CBD and supplement suppliers.
We deliver prompt and pragmatic advice to keep clients trading. We’ll help make sense of regulatory and compliance issues, while avoiding reputational risks of a product recall or quality issues. In addition, we assist with mergers and acquisitions, trading arrangements, brand protection, competition issues, property management and a variety of employment matters.
We regularly advise estates clients, individuals, trusts and charities on their corporate and commercial arrangements — including in relation to family offices, family investment companies, trusteeships over business interests and succession. For example, on the corporate side in addition to the support we provide in relation to transactions and funding, we advise high net worth individuals on a range of issues relating to their business interests from structuring or realising their investments through to succession issues in relation to owner managed businesses.
We also advise on the setting up and ongoing governance of family investment companies and angel investors on their investments in trading companies and in relation to the use of partnerships and LLPs. We also have a corporate trustee which acts as a trustee in many of our clients’ trust arrangements.
On the commercial side we advise on contracts and arrangements relating to any commercial activities carried out by our clients or activities relating to their properties, business, or assets.
Our criminal, compliance and regulatory team is well used to reacting to fatal and serious accidents which often raise issues covering police involvement, privileged internal investigations, disclosure to the HSE, access rights to documents and equipment, questioning of employees and contractors and the appeals against improvement and/or prohibition notices.
The team both prosecutes and defends, regularly supporting business and individuals in a wide range of sectors, including those within the agricultural sector.
This includes:
- Defending companies/partnerships and individuals facing gross negligence/ manslaughter investigations/ health and safety investigations involving commercial and farm related accidents. These could result in investigations by all types of linked government bodies including HSE, Environment Agency, BIS, DEFRA and HMRC.
- Alleged breaches of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.
- Acting for farmers and members of the shooting fraternity in firearms related offences; successful appeals to the crown court for firearms revocation cases.
- Advising on health and safety aspects applicable to commercial shoots.
- Local authority trading standards investigations involving milk contamination; animal tagging/ passport breaches; animal cruelty cases involving the importation/ sale/transportation of livestock; alleged breaches of the Food Hygiene Regs 2006; Egg and Chick Regs 2009.
Featured experience
Sale of land
We acted for a farm landowner who entered into an option to sell the land subject to planning residential developer. Planning was granted for 150 homes and the property was sold. At the same time as the sale a new option was granted to the developer over the adjoining farmland for potential future residential development. The sale also required a surrender of an existing Farm Business Tenancy (FBT) affecting the land to obtain vacant possession.
Contested sale
We advised a significant tagricultural landowner client, who entered into a sale contract in 2015 for the sale of a substantial area of agricultural land for residential development and which it wished to bring to an end. The client’s previous solicitor had served notice terminating that contract and entered into a new contract with a third party, conditional on termination of the first tcontract. Unfortunately, the client’s previous solicitor died, and we had to step in at extremely short notice to deal with the contested termination. Two Counsel’s opinions were sought at various points of the procedure and, in the end, the sale was completed with the overage capable of being bought out separately.
Farm acquisition
We acted on the acquisition of a 140-acre farm made up of four parcels of land from three separate sellers, all separately represented. The transaction involved two main acquisitions followed by an immediate land swap, to provide an access strip between the areas of land purchased. A significant tpart of the land was subject to a FBT, which added a further complication and required advice on entitlements and compensation.
We successfully liaised with the other lawyers involved to negotiate a simultaneous exchange and completion of all three transactions, as the client had requested.
Environmental Agency investigation
We supported a landowner client in relation to an Environment Agency investigation. The incident arose from the irrigation of fields with “dirty water” from the farm; namely, rainwater run-off from the concreted road, outside yard areas within the farm and parlour washings.
The farm used a Briggs Irrigator to irrigate the fields using the dirty water. On a particular day the irrigator caught a land drain, and an amount of dirty water directly entered the drain, subsequently passing into an adjacent brook causing pollution. The investigation by the Environment Agency revealed high ammonia readings which, it was suggested, evidenced that the polluting event was not a single event.
Testimonials
"We have worked with Browne Jacobson for a number of years and have always found its lawyers to be very responsive. The teams we work with consistently deliver practical and commercial advice that is relevant to our needs."
Key contacts
Robert Wofinden
Partner
Lucy Worwood
Partner
Imogen Holmes
Partner
Richard Barlow
Partner
Iain Blatherwick
Partner
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