Do you need your parent/s to die before April 2026? *MNHQ adding content warning mentions suicide*

[Spatulation]

Absolutely reeling that we're losing the farm that my grandfather bought, my father expanded and my son hoped to takeover.

The budget today means that we'll owe £1000000 in tax and we won't be able to get a mortgage as that's 5 times our annual income and over 35000 times bigger than last year's profit.

We own soil. That's it.

Agriculture has the highest suicide rate in any profession - sadly I can see it hitting an all time high in the next 18 months. My father (83) is already talking about it.

The ignorance re. farming and food security on this thread is astounding. Half the posters sound like inner London primary school kids.
OP, the NFU are already on to this. Please involve your MP.

People on MN (and most of the general public) do not understand farming at all

labour seems to want to get rid of family farms

I guess Labour was never a friend of the farming community

sorry it is all causing you and your family so much stress OP

For those citing the Government figure that only 1 in 4 farms will be affected, do you think we can afford to lose 25% of our food production when we already don’t produce enough to feed our population? You’ll all be the first to complain when a pint of milk/loaf of bread costs £5 in the supermarket!

Omg.

Do you not understand what farms do?

Or do you think they are like they are on the telly, with a celebrity swanning about buying a few alpacas and opening pubs??

It's not the same as passing on a house.

A farm is a business.

Some people on this thread are just idiots! It’s not at £6million property it’s a farm, that multiple generations will have worked themselves to the bone to maintain.

So yes, the OP or her father could sell the farm and have £5million profit, but they don’t want that, they want their farm! And who has 6 million to buy a farm? Oh right, property developers…

This!

The OP will get limited sympathy because assets of that level are beyond the wildest dreams of most members of the public, unfortunately.

^^ this sums it up

Basically all farming in the future will be done by large corporate farmers. It has been going this way anyway.

How much farms are worth to some extent depends on where they are not just quality of land. In addition the figures that Reeves is quoting will include ‘hobby farmers’ who farm as part of a portfolio of different things rather than rely on it entirely (and I know some, this is a thing). So the ‘your farm must be much bigger than average’ is 🤔, not necessarily true.

I suppose this may reduce the value of the land as it is a worse investment than before.

You will own nothing and be happy.

Surely the farm just needs to be incorporated as a business? It doesn't need to be owned by one individual, if it was owned with shares split between at least 5 family members then no individual owns more than £1m worth.

The ultra-wealthy elite who own most of the land generally pay virtually no inheritance tax at all even when their properties are worth billions because they structure their ownership so that no individual actually owns anything. It's a loophole I want to be closed but while it exists you might as well use it.

Can you dad not sign over the farm to your son now?

This.

I live in a farming area.

Labour won't have a chance of ever getting in here, but presumably they know that. Their policies are designed to appease the people who traditionally vote for them.

It's not a 'loophole'. It's a perfectly legitimate law.

I'm sorry @Spatulation . I agree this is ill thought through.

Most of our farmers are generational. Lose them and we don't replace them with new farmers. We risk our food security and increase emissions importing everything.

I suspect you'll get more support when people realise that 'just self a bit' means their house no longer backs into countryside but a waste incinerator, massive battery storage facility etc.

I think there will be a lot of campaigning in the next two years to make more sense of this.

People on here just see a big number and think 'rich' without any real understanding of how farms are valued.

I think this is it…..I don’t understand farming myself and guessing lots of others don’t

I’m so sorry OP it’s an awful worrying time for farmers. I hope something will be done. A lot of people don’t understand how much farmers do for us. The U.K. needs its farms. God knows what will happen to the country in a generation if all these are lost.

Yes, I get that but there must be a way of signing over ownership?

I agree with you. The general population think you have 6 million to spend. They don't understand all the money is tied up in the actual farm. My grandfather and his father were farmers. They bought the farm I the 1920s, but sold it due to my grandfather's ill health. They went on to have good lives, just not in the way they'd always thought. I would try and get your dad some mental health help and talk to someone who can help look at the financial sides. I'm sorry you're going through this. It's such a shame. My ex was from a farming background. He went off to uni and got a different job, but his brother farmed that land from a child. I do believe farms should be passed to family without any issues. Yes, all the land they owned was worth millions, but there's no access to that money.

I live in a small bungalow, on an odd small piece of land, that was once part of a large farm and over the centuries (we have the history), piece by piece, it was sold off for death duties until no longer viable to farm! We have neighbouring productive farm land bought by investors / developers (based in Guernsey), on an area of natural beauty, where they are trying to get planning to build 700 homes, in an area that is struggling to move for traffic, water!, let alone all the other increasing rare societal support structures. Where do you want food to come from, the USA? The USA adulturate their food with substances long since banned here and we need farms, so why are Labour hitting areas that don't make sense and if Labour think building housing boxes, of dubious quality (I worked until recently in a housing association and you really don't want to know how badly your homes for sale, shared ownership (licence to print money for HAs), affordable and the ever increasingly rare social housing is built - you'd cry!) will sort our problems, it really will not and we need to encourage farming and not decimate it. Maybe a bigger take from the Royal Family was needed, or a serious look at those with Trusts was needed, thinking here the Grosvenors, to pull more from those that seem able to make even more, whilst the rest of us will be hit with ever increasing taxes. You ain't seen nothing yet and I don't support any political party, as none are making my life better or seem to have in the last few decades! I hope you save your farm, set up a company, a trust, that someone can advise you how to ride this storm and the rest of us will need to be wary of the next raid on our pockets and no guys, I am not rich, or mega well off, just trying to not live in deficit and sadly we need more than money pumped in, we need better management, common sense and to weed out that which should be working for us, but sadly seems not to be! Rant over, but we need more food production, not less and how quickly we forget what recently highlighted our need to be more independent.

He can but he's 83 so if he dies in the next 7 years, they will be liable for IHT on the farm - they will only get tapered relief depending on how long he lives. Thats why he's contemplating suicide now before this IHT changes take effect.

that multiple generations will have worked themselves to the bone to maintain

Not in this case - the OPs grandad bought the farm.

Gosh so many awful posts on here.

Farmers have been screwed by the food industry and now this.

It is a land grab. Forcing farmers to sell farming land likely to want to develop either with housing or other industry.

On an environmental level alone it is abhorrent.

I know lots of farming families none of them are rich. They are producing food ffs.

The next raid is definitely coming in the next few years, presumably the year after they win the election again, if they do.

I think this government will be the least popular for decades, and that's saying something after the shit show we've had.

A return to one nation Conservatism would please me.

I'm really sorry this is happening to you and your family OP, it's really unfair. As you say, your granddad bought it and built it up and it has been part of your family that you hoped would continue into future generations. I imagine if your father has been running it all his life then this was probably your family home too. Ignore all the negative posts in here, bitter people seem to think that just because people are worse off then you you are not allowed to feel upset or hard done by, it's ridiculous. They clearly don't understand the concept either of being land rich, cash poor. You're clearly not after the money from the land, you just want to hold on to something that has been part of your family for your whole life. Get your father to speak to an estate planner, hopefully there is something you can do to keep it in your family.

And also presumably they produce food for this country?

Although I guess we won't really need food as we will all be on weight loss jabs if wes streeting has his way.

Measures like this just make me think someone else is controlling ‘the government’ and it’s not all as it appears.
Soon the banks will own it all: houses, land, farming and tv. Good luck Britain and thanks to the woke left, just wait…