Archers thread #195: Run, Amber, run! Discuss The Archers here.

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Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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Emma spoke sense to George and Amber tonight. Goodness only knows where this storyline is going. I can't see George being Father of the Year. Oh dear.

Over to you!

I suspect George of doing something to the gate to make Josh look bad. It was all too convenient for him

And Ruth saying that the farm would never be sold. Naive in the first degree. Especially coming from someone who was behind the Great Move North. I think this is a long overdue storyline (albeit poorly executed in some respects) and far more interesting than the whole George and Amber nonsense. Ben is quite clearly going down a non-farming route - he won’t earn much as a nurse, but he won’t have to worry about housing costs. Josh is more interesting - and not just because he’s inheriting a cottage that belongs to his aunts. I feel he will almost certainly now end up with Esme on the recently invented Meadow Farm. Rosie is the real winner here since Pip and Stella are unlikely to have children. She will have no competition when it’s eventually her turn to inherit.

I really can't bear to hear Pip sounding happy

Paying IHT is not the individual responsibility of the beneficiaries; the executors will have to ensure there is money put aside to pay it before they can distribute anything else. I'm not quite sure what they do if there isn't enough available money in the estate - do they have to make a commercial decision about selling off a piece of land of something to cover it?

But what had me wondering was the blithe assumption that, if Kenton and Elizabeth conveniently predecease David and Ruth, the trust arrangement disappears. Surely their share goes to whoever they choose to leave it to? Or was there some arrangement that it would just fall back into the estate? It seems on the face of it unlikely that Elizabeth in particular would have agreed to that.

Re Pip and Stella - I'm hoping there was some really obvious symbolism in the engagement ring being covered in excrement.

I wondered if Josh will now decide he does want to go after Meadow Farm, leading to an enemies-to-lovers storyline for him and Esme? Or has Esme automatically qualified for the farm when she told the landlord she wanted to stay?

You can pay IHT in instalments of up to 10 years if the money to pay the entire sum isn’t immediately available.

I felt really sorry for Josh.

I am not a lawyer.
The 'shares' that Elizabeth, Shula and Kenton have are 'golden' ones.
They aren't real ones and only impact if the farm is sold.
I wouldn't be surprised if they die with their owner or when David dies.

Well I did enjoy lunch at Brookfield. Lots to think about…The conversation between Pip and Stella in the kitchen was so distasteful. I wish it had been overheard by Josh or even Ruth. ‘This is what you have always wanted!!’ So crass. Revolting actually.

And why were Leonard and Jill looking after Rosie while Sunday lunch was actually being served and Rosie’s mother and soon-to-be Stepmom were just sitting at the table waiting for the roasties to land in their lap? Horrible pair.

I imagine Ruth’s Sunday lunch is similar to a school dinner. Overcooked beef (‘it’s not too pink is it’), roast potatoes lacking in crunch, and soggy veg…

Leonard and Jill babysitting puzzled me too. Isn’t Rosie about 6 years old? Why wasn’t she at the table eating lunch? Alternatively she’s old enough to be left in another room playing with her toys or in front of the TV so I don’t understand why her great grandmother had to look after her but Pip never misses a chance to palm her off. I’m sure it won’t be long before she asks Stella to rethink the nonsense about Rosie calling her ‘mum’.

Well, it was no fondant fancy - but at least the thing is done.

Very odd to have Stella there but not even allude to that change in circumstance during the main conversation.

How on earth are the SWs going to handle their Glebe Cottage retcon?

Rosie was being babysat to keep Jill off air - it was a tactical move by the SWs and it’s ironic that while the actress who plays her is understandably winding down, Jill herself is more vigorous than ever, albeit off stage. There seems to be some Glebe Cottage revisionism going on in the manner of Neil the foundling (though I’m still not sure what purpose that diversion served). I imagine the thinking is that Shula is in Sunderland (out of sight out of mind) and Elizabeth has her own inheritance issues to resolve at LL so the SWs are hoping we won’t notice. I imagine their thinking is that if they can get away with inventing a new farm, fudging the ownership of GC is a small detail. I no longer think they are writing for long-term listeners. My 89-year-old mum has given up as it’s so random now - she ended up thinking she had remembered wrong when in fact she remembers rather accurately and was being gaslit into thinking she could no longer keep up. It’s rather sad.

Yes, but as there seems to be little actual cash in the estate for the executors to put aside for the tax and as they don't seem to plan on selling land, it will effectively be the beneficiaries (or their businesses) who have to pay the tax from future earnings over ten years, presumably pro-rata'd.

Unless David and Ruth have set up some kind of insurance policy in trust, which they have never discussed and which would be very expensive at this stage in their lives, I would imagine. Or unless they have more money than we imagine they have and/or more savvy about tax affairs.

IME when will-making it is ill-advised to leave specific assets eg a cottage/holiday home etc to an individual as until someone actually dies the tax due is only ever theoretical. It’s only post-IHT that the remainder can be divided up. Say the farm falls on hard times and one of the cottages or Josh’s 30 acres need to be sold prior to R and D’s demise then there won’t be anything left forJosh to inherit. Then what happens? Pip takes it all, Ben gets his cottage while Josh relies on his business acumen? Hmm…R and D really need some proper advice. Just handing it to Pip because she is the favourite is nuts.

The seven year rule won’t work for R and D unless they step away entirely from Brookfield which they won’t want to do and probably couldn’t afford to do anyway. Did Jill give the farm away under the seven year rule? Arguably she has been breaking that rule for years now by living there (and moving in her lover), presumably rent-free.

I expect they've consulted The Only Solicitor In The Village and she has just done as she was told without asking who owns what. Because, well, you'd think people would know what belongs to them and what doesn't! Jill may have something to say about them leaving her cottage to Ben/Josh/Whoever, but as she's likely to die before R&D it will already have gone to Shula and Elizabeth, so won't be available. Oops!

And yes, unless there's something very odd about farming, IHT comes out of residue, not out of individual legacies. So Ben & Josh will get whatever is left to them without having to pay the tax personally. The executors will have to sell Rosie to cover it.

Why not just sell the farm and the properties and split the money?

I'd be throwing a hissy fit at the thought of Stella living in the farmhouse on my family farm. Can you tell I'm not from farming stock?

That’s the hissy fit Elizabeth (and spineless Kenton) threw when David and Ruth were set to inherit.

And now Ruth is ruling the roost. And doling out the goodies.

I've yet to hear Sunday's episode, but is Carol Tregorran still alive? I'd love Lizzie to go ballistic but I rather think they are hoping that we'll forget about Lower Loxley.

I suppose they are also going to have to decide what Shula does with the Stables in due course (or have they forgotten that Lilian is just keeping an eye on things), but Bridge Farm (with Pat and Tony in their 70's) would be more of a pressing matter.

Home Farm, too. They might not have the house any more, but there is still the land. What happened with Ruari or Alice taking everything over?

playing Spot-The-Nonsense is probably why most of us listen.

That, and the fact that sometimes, I am unavoidably exposed to an episode, and 13 minutes of "who are these people, what are they doing, and what happened with whatever-I-heard-about-last-time" is vastly more irritating than just following along in real time 😆

@LillianGishwhy wouldn’t pip and Stella have children. Pip is early 30s isn’t she? And Stella a little older. Could easily be on the cards.

but yes, they were both crass and nauseating. I hope Josh successfully upsets the Apple cart. All that ‘you’re so entrepreneurial so you’ll be ok’ nonsense. And the ‘you always wanted to go your own way with the (multi million pound) egg business’ - surely that’s not fair

Just a hunch @stilldumdedumming .I get the impression Stella much prefers dogs to children - doesn’t want to be called mum and is just not that into Rosie.

I expect I'm looking back through rose-tinted glasses but when David was in Pip's position, i.e. working all hours on the farm and planning to get married, Phil and Jill were very worried about losing a large chunk of the farm if he married and it didn't work out. There was a very satisfying row, David (and Ruth) became partners in the farm and Phil and Jill retired. As far as I can recall, everything we heard was consistent with what we knew about the ownership of the farm and all its assets. I'm baffled by how ineptly the current storyline has been set up, by comparison. Do they think we've forgotten, or do they just not care? I'm not sure which is worse.

Why Stella is into Pip is the bigger question! Their whole relationship is a mystery to me.

I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention at the time, but I thought that Home Farm was converted into a corporate venture after Debbie went off to Hungary? There were some arguments about relative shareholdings, together with Adam being grumpy because he was the only 'child' contributing any manpower to the operation (so that must have been quite a few years ago before he flounced off to after defrauding the Farm to pay to rewire his home that had been refurbished after "That Flood") I think the Adam, Debbie, Alice, Ruari all have a shareholding, receiving annual dividends, and get a salary if they work for Home Farm. I don't recall whether Brian has any shares whether he just draws a salary.

I wonder what the significance of Stella's brother visiting will be?

FWIW Pip is 32 and I had the impression that Stella was a fair bit older (the actress herself is 49). She turned up as Home Farm Estate manager in 2021 and was initially a friend of Ruth (57), rather than Pip. I think Rosie must be approaching her 8th birthday.

I think the Adam, Debbie, Alice, Ruari all have a shareholding, receiving annual dividends ...

Don't forget Kate! Or did she get the yurt swamp instead?