The changes to Business and Agricultural Reliefs from Inheritance Tax have certainly grabbed headlines with many farmers anxious about what this means for their family farms. Based on these headlines, it is easy to be swept along with the notion that the changes are all doom and gloom, but here at Tozers, we have taken a moment to pause and consider how the proposed changes might actually play out for our clients in practical terms. Read the latest insight from succession planning expert Naomi Hoare below.

In 2022 Baroness Rock chaired a Tenancy Working Group which tasked with reviewing practices to ensure tenant farmers could access government finance and with considering practices in the agricultural tenanted sector more generally.

Fresh air, closer to nature, room to grow, the ability to forge farming and other business ventures, control your own space and to positively affect the landscape and ecosystem around you; there are many reasons why farms can be great places to live, work and raise families.

It always serves to do some basic groundwork ahead of a sale of your land, whether that sale is imminent or not. Prior preparation can facilitate a smooth sale at the agreed price, rather than having to deal with the disappointment of delays and price adjustments down the line.

As an animal owner, you may have thought about - or even experienced - your animals escaping and causing damage to property or even injuring someone. Have you ever worried about your liability for damage caused by your animals? Our latest insight provides advice to animal owners on this Act which is notoriously difficult to interpret.

A covenant is the legal term for a promise, usually not to do something on your land (a negative or restrictive covenant) but occasionally to do something (a positive covenant).

Adverse possession is all about claiming someone else’s land as your own on the basis of your possession of it for a period designated by law. Of course, not all kinds of occupation lead to eventual ownership.

Land is a great asset to have - I don’t think anyone would dispute that. But by the same token owning land (like having money) can be a worry as well. If you are lucky and your land has clearly identified boundaries and so long as there is no argument about them, all is well. That is the case for most land but some people are not quite so lucky. Boundary disputes can be a headache, especially if not well handled from the start.

One of the joys of living in the southwest is the access to the countryside that can be enjoyed. Many people will make regular use of the network of paths and trails - for the morning dog walk, for a lengthy weekend ramble or perhaps for something as simple as a shortcut to school – without ever giving their existence much thought.

The right to wild camp on Dartmoor has been allowed under local law for decades until earlier this year when it was challenged by a local landowner. This insight takes a further look at the case in question where landowners argued that wild camping should not be classed as open-air recreation.

Biodiversity Net Gain (“BNG”) in the context of planning and development is the principle that development of land should leave the natural environment of those sites in a measurably better state than they were prior to the development taking place.

As we move into the school holidays, we are seeing an increase in instructions for removing unauthorised encampments from land. Given the lack of affordable housing, traveller sites and, now, holiday accommodation in hot spot areas, we expect to see a big rise in unauthorised encampments across popular visitor sites.