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.

If your on X (twitter) read the thread that Dan Neidle has written on this
https://x.com/danneidle?s=21&t=3D6KAnwoh_A-QZuMZnv-Cw

I have little understanding of it but there may be somethings here that reassure you

Perhaps farmers need to stop actively farming and all jump on the carbon credit scheme and plant trees. That way Rayner gets her houses offset but the farmland cannot be built upon.
Which could prove something of a circular problem. 😉

So how did they acquire 6 million worth of land .... someone bought it somewhere

I can’t see this actually becoming law. Even dumb fuck labour supporters aren’t stupid enough to bite the hand that literally feeds them.

So how did they acquire 6 million worth of land .... someone bought it somewhere

A long time ago before land was as expensive and there wasn't such a huge discrepancy between lands costs and farming turnover.

If RR had said £10m then I wouldn't be so shocked,

Good quality, food production farmland runs to about £10,000/acre so £1m equates to about 100 acres if you ignore farm equipment/buildings/cottages.

No one with any knowledge of farming can surely believe that 100 acres will reliably produce enough income to be viable as a trading business. The traditional "farmer's wife" home-making, egg-collecting from the chickens, warming struggling lambs in the kitchen by the Aga is long dead. These days, in addition to that spouses generally have a job which is essential in contributing to the financial stability of a farming family. Alternatively they help run the diversification sideline of holiday cottages or other sideline.

Unless there's something redeeming in the detail which wasn't in her speech, RR is giving tax relief to the non-viable agricultural asset owners whilst shafting all others.

Just to add insult to injury, are people aware of the cause of farm land prices having gone up so much in recent years ? Large corporate "farming" businesses buying up land, that's why. Smaller farmers have had to compete with the big boys who had greater financing ability when it came to land purchases.

There's a historical reason why farmers had tax reliefs available on death. People with no prior knowledge on this matter need to do some extensive research on the economics of farming over the past century or so before they start spouting off from a politics of envy point of view online. Also consider/read up on food security issues. Have we forgotten the "feeding the nation" issues of 2 world wars with a potential third hovering ever closer given the numerous ongoing current world conflicts. Covid was a reminder but hey-ho a change of government and the food situation is all forgotten.

As for farmers causing Brexit nonsense. If the government of the day had done a proper grass roots (no pun intended) poll/analysis of the situation they'd never have allowed a referendum to take place until they'd enacted measures to appease the grievances with the state of things outside of London and the home counties/world of those who consider themselves cultured/intellectual.

@Spatulation

I haven't read all the thread yet but just wanted to say how sorry I am. This is devastating news for your family. I absolutely get it.

It's so alarming and depressing that so few people seem to understand how family farms operate, yet still feel qualified to make judgmental and horrible comments.

There is this knee jerk reaction amongst some that farmers = gin swilling landowning toffs who therefore deserve all they get. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Families like yours are helping to feed the nation, preserve the countryside as an amenity and do their bit for the environment. All for meagre reward, in many cases.

And there is that deep connection to the land. I do hope some solution can be found for your family OP.

^^
this.

Because the land isn't available to be bought .
Once more becomes available
More families have a chance ,and then in turn have their family working on the land .
What's good for the goose .
You can't have it all ways ..give others a chance to make a living too

From those I know, they started as tenant farmers and took on mortgages. Worked hard for decades to pay it off. Over which time the value of land has gone up considerably (not due to the profits available through farming, I should add in case anyone doesn't realise this point) to the point that this would no longer be feasible from them to do this nowadays (or anyone else for that matter).

The price of land is in no way related to the profits which can come from it via farming in todays broken economic system.

Liquidation of the kulaks?

The OP states that her grandfather bought it, probably back in the 30's - 40's when land would have been a lot cheaper.

If all the small farms are sold they will either go for housing, or to large agricultural conglomerates that use massive amounts of pesticides, herbicides, non-organic fertilizers, grub up hedge rows to make massive fields resulting in soil erosion and loss, and cut down trees. Where farms are used for livestock the animals will be kept 24 hours a day in barns, cages, or pens. It will not be good for the environment or animal welfare at all.

It's almost as if there are already laws in place to prevent people from getting around inheritance tax laws, isn't it?

Not sure if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but apparently this will only affect the top 25% of farms (who are worth above £1 million). I would guess that would be OP's family in top 5% of farming families?

Wondered what the OP thought about this, as it was being said on the news this morning that this would only really impact well off landowners (and if OP's family DID sell 1/6 of their land for the tax, they would still be in top 10% or so?).

Call this a stupid question if you will but how is this theoretical "value" of £6million calculated? Because I wouldn't value a going concern at £6million if it didn't have a reasonable expectation of generating at least £600,000 per year in profit. In which case someone with a ⅙th share would be in for £100,000 profit and wouldn't need a second job. If the farm isn't generating that kind of money then how can it be genuinely worth £6million? Presumably the land can only be used for agriculture so there isn't a better profit to be made doing something else? Things are only worth what is generally accepted as a reasonable price to pay for it. If a parcel of land only has the potential to generate eg £10,000 of profit per year then it would be a really stupid investment to value it at more than £100,000.

Exactly

ROFL at your post.

There are certainly echos of that.

They know the impact this will have on farming. Or they should.

With the world in the state it is, we need to be ramping up our own food production, not concreting over land.

I'm hoping there'll be a u-turn on this awful policy, OP.

Have not RTFT, but I feel for you OP. In one stroke Labour is killing off UK farming and potential food self sufficiency within a decade or so. And I'm sorry that so many of the responses you received on here are so blinded by envy, malice and misery, that they are ignorant of how Labour is destroying this country.

Great post @EPankhurst 👏

Idk I think many see Reeves as getting everything right, on here anyway

30acres recently sold near us for 900k with two small properties on it . One partially built and one with a tin roof. 40acres in NI will push the majority of farms into Inheritance tax territory as our land is so expensive. Our farm actually lost over 10k last year .

Ah yes, the soil erosion and loss of trees and hedgerows to soak up excess rainfall. Yay, more towns and villages more prone to flooding as a result! The good news is you can blame both this AND global warming for your house becoming valueless and uninsurable! And let's chuck a few more square metres of our coastline into the sea every year while we're at it, I'm sure we won't miss it.

Whatever anyone thinks ,the government is going to do ,what they are going to do ..they were voted in ,so the next 5 years they can do as they please .
A friend of mine actually rents a farm,she barely makes a living , greedy landlord takes nearly all she earns in rent .
She wouldn't be able to buy even a 6 th of the farm ,
So it's most probably going to. Only be the rich buying the land
Nothing really changes
The rich get richer
And ....