Rural Land Solicitors

We provide comprehensive legal support for rural landowners

Owners of rural land typically seek to preserve its real value over generations, whilst maximising its current productivity and income generating potential.

These two outcomes are inextricably linked.  To achieve them requires a deep understanding of the complex legal and practical issues involved.  That must be combined with a robust approach to resolving problems in order to gain agreement between parties whose interests may differ.

Longmores has been doing this for some two centuries, often working across generations in the same family and with trustees.  We are used to collaborating closely with other advisers such as agents to produce the best outcomes possible for clients, be they owners or buyers of rural estates or farmers.

We are ranked by leading client guide, the Legal 500 for our Rural expertise, as well as for related areas including Corporate and Commercial, Commercial Property, and Private Client.

Head of Rural Victoria Sandberg, as well as team members Rachael Spalton and Richard Horwood, have been identified by the Legal 500 as recommended lawyers.

No two cases are alike.  We take time to get to know our clients and understand the issues that matter most to them, as well as the results that define their success over the long term.  Through our involvement with bodies such as the CLA (Country Land and Business Association), where our Head of Rural is a committee member, we have gained a deep understanding of issues affecting rural land ownership and land management.

As a result of our own expertise and our close collaboration with experts in other fields (such as surveyors and planners) we are able to help clients to see and exploit opportunities that might otherwise have eluded them.

For example, we have experience in handling issues such as promotion agreements and unregistered land (whether first registrations, purchase or sale), which are by no means common nowadays.

Our approach is robust, practical and no-nonsense.

Areas in which we work with clients include:

  • Farm sales and purchases
  • Overage clauses
  • Option agreements and conditional contracts
  • Letting redundant buildings
  • Farming contract disputes
  • Farming partnerships and disputes
  • Removing squatters
  • Employment issues
  • Tax planning and trusts
  • Rural promotion agreements
  • Commercial contracts
  • Wills and inheritance tax planning for family estates.

Case Studies

  • Enabling a client to retain maximum control over planning strategy and other aspects important to him in the context of a development agreement without jeopardising success for the developer.
  • Simplifying inheritance tax planning for the owners of a complex family farming business.
  • Administering a rural estate for an elderly landowner.
  • Diversifying income from land assets by leasing land for the installation of renewable energy storage batteries on farmland.
  • Acting for a seller of farm land that had been in their family for several generations and was unregistered.
  • Acting for landed estates in relation to regular estate management work, including leases and sales of part.
  • Buying farm land including the transfer of entitlements.


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