Your challenges
You own rural land and you want to realise the opportunities available to you besides farming and agriculture. How do you put your ideas into action? You are a trustee with responsibilities towards the beneficiaries of the trust or a director of a company with duties to the shareholders. How do you maximise the return on your rural holding and balance competing interests that may include neighbours, planning requirements and future generations?
You may be:
- A trustee or actual owner wanting to construct a farm water reservoir as part of a joint venture with neighbouring landowners – how do you secure the financing and document the agreement with your neighbours?
- An educational establishment, charity or pension fund looking to develop part of your rural portfolio into housing or business units – how do you ensure that you maximise your return and minimise your exposure to risk and to liabilities?
- An owner of a historic house wanting to convert outbuildings into residential and commercial units for rent – what agreements will you need to enter into with the local planning authority?
- An overseas investor looking to develop your equine business – how do you structure your tax planning around the property acquisitions and tenancies?
- An owner wanting to join with neighbours to promote their joint land for development
- A landowner or developer wanting to invest in the next generation of wind, solar, gasification or anaerobic digestion technologies
How we can support you
Unlike many smaller practices, we have the depth of resource to build a team of individuals around your particular project. This ensures that:
- The appropriate level of lawyer is responsible for each part of the job
- You receive advice from leading lawyers at every stage of your project
- We invariably have experience of a project similar to yours where many other firms may not
The strength you need
Our team is one of the largest rural and agricultural practices in the country. We also have top-rated, expert teams in many other practice areas that are relevant to our rural clients such as private and corporate tax, planning law, environmental matters and employment law. We have the depth of expertise and resource to meet any of your objectives.
Lawyers you can trust
Our team is top rated by Chambers UK and Legal 500. Legal 500 states that we are "the kings of landed estates in East Anglia" while Chambers UK notes that we are able to "assemble a bespoke team to suit the needs of [our] institutional, public utility and educational clients, which include Oxford and Cambridge colleges." Our lead partner, Michael Aubrey, is credited by clients as being "proactive, commercially aware and pragmatic" and the team overall is praised for being a "strong and diverse rural team" by Legal 500.