Farming & Finance - An Advanced Guide for Family Lawyers

Introduction

Farming cases present a host of additional difficulties for the family finance practitioner. Farms are both the family home and the business that provides the family’s income, and those businesses are often run by both parties either as partnerships or limited companies.

In addition, farms are often inherited assets, regarded as family property which is intended to be passed on to the next generation, and therefore often regarded by at least one of the parties as non-matrimonial.

Add to that the problems that Brexit has dealt farmers, with the loss of subsidies and the changes brought by the Agriculture Act 2020, and the problems of dealing with the break-up of farming marriages and cohabitation often make farming cases more complex and difficult than most others.

In this in-person course you will not only be given the legal and procedural material to deal with farming cases but you will also be taken through practical examples to show you how to deal with them in practice.

What You Will Learn

This course will cover the following:

• Assets
• What are the assets?
• Land
• The former matrimonial home
• Animals
• Crops
• Equipment and chattels
• The business - partnerships, limited companies
• Issues
• Identifying the owner(s)
• Matrimonial or non-matrimonial - inherited or family property, mingling
• Valuation - the importance of choosing the right valuer
• Income
• Types
• Trading income
• Additional payments
• Diversification
• Opportunities for other income
• Examining farming accounts
• The effects of Brexit
• Remedies
• The difficulties of extracting capital and income without destroying the farm or the business
• Commercial borrowing
• Sale of land
• Family borrowing or gifts
• Lump sums by instalments
• Variation of settlement order under the MCA 1973, s 24(1)(c)
• Transfer or sale of property
• Lump sums
• Periodical payments
• Other issues
• Tax
• CGT
• BADR
• Inheritance tax
• Unmarried partners - Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996
• Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
• Case studies