If you are an entrepreneur and own your own company, that is all the more reason why you should take professional advice regarding the issues that might arise on your death. In an unusual High Court case on point, a farm contracting business was left
Parents who assure their children of a future inheritance may find themselves legally bound to keep their word – but such promises may only be conditional. A judge made that point in a case concerning a bitter breakdown in relations between an elderly farmer and
Can a planning unit encompassing more than one residential property be viewed as a single ‘dwelling’? In an important ruling which underscored the undesirability of developing isolated homes in the open countryside, the High Court has answered that question in the negative. The case concerned
Many farmers understandably wish to keep their businesses in the family after they are gone but, without professional inheritance planning, that can be very difficult to achieve. The point was powerfully made by a Court of Appeal ruling which, whilst seeking to resolve a bitter
The intensity of demand for more new homes was underlined by a case in which the High Court upheld planning permission for a development of up to 200 dwellings on farmland less than 100 metres from a potentially toxic former landfill site. The 7.9-hectare proposal
Travellers have particular needs in a society that does not always welcome them, but they can expect firm punishment if they defy planning control. In one case, the High Court came down hard on travellers who created an unlawful encampment on Good Friday, in the
Private business interests sometimes have to give way to the broader public interest in protecting wildlife habitats and the environment. However, in one case, Natural England was heavily criticised by the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) after it served a stop notice that effectively shut down a
Farmers tend to resist residential developments close to their land due to concerns that new residents may complain about the noise or smells that agriculture inevitably generates. However, in a High Court case on point, a farmer failed to block plans for a residential barn
Countryside smells are recognised by planners to be a fact of rural life. In a case on point, the High Court upheld planning permission granted for an intensive poultry farm despite a campaigner’s concerns about unpleasant odours. A farmer wished to construct two poultry sheds,
Benefactors are perfectly entitled to give away their worldly goods. However, as one case concerning an agricultural smallholding showed, the law treats land differently from anything else and it can only be donated or otherwise disposed of by deed. The occupier of the 2.5-acre smallholding
