My Grandpa has decided to move into a home after an attempted burglary. He has been very shaken and I think he will come to live with us to settle a bit and see, but he wants some advice on what he is potentially selling. He is completely in control of his marbles but just very scared to be alone at the moment.
The house has around 50 acres of land. Some of this is equine land and rented to a nice friend of the family which goes back a generation. The other half of the land is agricultural and the man who rents it recently passed his tenancy down to his son. There was no indication this was coming and it was not something we had thought could happen, but did. He has been advised this now means the land can't be sold until this son dies, or at least he could potentially make it very awkward and ask a lot to be bought out.
My Grandpa wants to build on the land as the village has no other space for houses and before a developer bought it on his death he wanted to build just 5 or so large houses rather than it be turned into high rise flats/Barratt Homes type cash-cow. He is not quite sure how to proceed and he feels let down by his land agent who didn't forsee the tenant handing over to his son and said nothing can be done other than move to block it happening again (which he has done). What we really want is a specialist solicitor who can act relatively quickly to advise us of all of the options and possibly the best way to proceed with the tenant. We have an architect but scared to do any planning permissions until this tenant is out of the picture or at least legally bound in some way.
Many thanks in advance.