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Advice for farmers on autumn budget 2024 impact on agriculture

The Autumn 2024 Budget announcements by the chancellor Rachel Reeves included planned inheritance tax changes for farmers and family farming businesses.

Autumn budget 2024 impact on agriculture summary

The chancellor announced changes to inheritance tax reliefs. From April 2026, taxes would apply to agricultural assets over £1m (or possibly up to £3m in certain circumstances) as well as an above-inflation hike in the National Living Wage (NLW), with the rate for over 21s increasing 6.7% to £12.21 from April.

Specifically, from 6th of April 2026, the 100% Business Property Relief and Agricultural Property Relief will vanish. Farmers and growers will have to pay 20% inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1m, leaving many fearing they will have to break up their farm to pay the bill.

Our advice on business resilience, including succession and inheritance planning advice, is that there is time to prepare and there are steps you can take to reduce the inheritance tax bill your family may face.

  • Have a Will. Now more than ever important to have an up-to-date Will in place to outline your wishes.
  • Have Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) in place to protect you due to incapacity. Ideally you would have both a Health & Welfare and Property & Financial Affairs LPA in place per person.
  • Succession planning
    • Talk to professional advisors – legal, insurance, finance, land agents and accountants.
    • We recommend getting your solicitor, accountant and land agent together with you and your family when you are having succession planning discussions so that all aspects can be gone through and compliment each other.
    • Parents lead the talk, involve your children, ask individuals what they value and include discussions on housing and care.
  • Partnership Agreements are an important written document to have in place.
    • Is land owned by the individual farmer, or by partnership/company?
    • Knowing who owns the land helps avoid disputes in the event of death or departure.
    • Allows elderly, landowning parents to farm in partnership with hard working but asset-poor children.
    • Gradual transfer of wealth.
    • Incentivises next generation.
    • One solution to the “two children problem.”
  • Partnership Agreement and your Will.
    • Does your Will fit together with your partnership agreement/shareholder’s agreement (for companies)?
    • The agreements are contracts, and they trump your Will. Has the solicitor drafting your Will seen the agreements? The two are to be looked at together regarding any conflict.
  • Shareholder’s Agreements. These are crucial because they outline the rights, responsibilities and obligations of shareholders helping to prevent disputes and misunderstandings.
    • They can govern decision making processes, protect minority interests and provide clarity on ownership transfers, ensuring smooth operation and stability within the Company.

In our view, successful succession planning keeps the business together and keeps the family together.

Read more in our blog – Farming Succession and the impact of the Autumn Budget 2024

If you are a NFU LAS member, their Legal Health Check, alongside the Contract Checking Service, can help you start to get your documents in order and get you money back from the NFU against the cost of putting these documents in place. Find out more in the NFU section below.

Who are our experts to contact about action you can take

  • Amy Clarkson – Head of Agricultural Law team – 01653 600070
    Specialising in agricultural and rural property.
    Main contact for the NFU LAS Legal Health Check and Contract Checking service.
  • Sharon Richardson – Director – 01904 624185
    Specialising in private client including Wills, LPA’s, estate planning, trusts.
  • Ian Barnard – Director, Head of the Malton office – 01653 600070
    Specialising in company and commercial legal work including agreements, contracts, leases.

We have been part of a panel of experts at business resilience events about estate planning and the impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 decision on farmers and farming businesses. If you would like to attend a future business resilience event we are part of, please email your interest to marketing@crombiewilkinson.co.uk so we can share dates and times with you when the next set of events are organised for 2025.

The NFU action on the impact of the 2024 Autumn Budget on the farming industry

We are one of the NFU North legal panel firms and support the work the NFU are doing to lobby the government to stop the planned family farming tax.

Their campaign to stop the family farm tax is getting support from the public but they know they are in this for the long haul, but are committed to getting the government to see they have got these planned changes to APR and BPR wrong.

You can find out more about the NFU Stop the Family Farm Tax campaign at -
https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/autumn-budget-a-timeline-of-nfu-lobbying/?utm_source=bulletin&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=041224

The NFU have also published examples of five real family farms to find out what each could pay under the new IHT reforms, read about this at - https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/apr-case-studies/?utm_source=bulletin&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=041224

The NFU Contract Checking Service and Legal Health Check offerings

For members subscribing to the NFU’s Legal Assistance Scheme, financial support is available at this time subject to any changes in offer and timescales by the NFU, to offset the cost of using the contract checking service or going ahead with remedial legal work identified as a result of a free legal health check.

Members using the contract checking service can apply for up to £1,000 towards the cost of having four contracts checked (£250 each) or drafted by us as the legal panel firm.

Members using the free legal health check service can apply for up to £1,000 towards the cost of four legal instructions arising from the health check (£250 each) for members who subscribe to the LAS and apply via NFU CallFirst.

For example, for eligible NFU members, they could get up to £1000 back from the NFU when a couple make four Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) plus 12.5% discount on our legal fees. 

This makes it a very cost-effective way to make your Health & Welfare and Property & Affairs LPAs to have that important protection in place.

The Legal Health Check can also significantly help underpin business resilience. It could assist in many ways - including, but not limited to, the following areas:

• Property matters (includes ownership, tenancies, land registration)

• Estate planning (includes Wills, Trust Deeds etc.)

• Business structures

• Share farming

• Contract farming

• Rights of Way (including Section 31(6) applications)

• Succession planning

• Employment

• Diversification

Find out more about the NFU Contract Checking Service and the Legal Health Check offering. Amy Clarkson can provide you with a copy of the legal health check form you can complete and supply back to here to assess your requirements.