Handing over a farm is the biggest legal transaction most farming families will ever make, and it is rarely just a deed. Done well, it is a sequence: formalising leases or partnership arrangements in the years beforehand, agreeing what the older generation keeps (residence, support, a site), agreeing what non-farming children receive, executing the transfer, dealing with entitlements, and registering everything correctly with Tailte Éireann. Done badly — or left until a crisis — families can lose reliefs, invite disputes and put the holding itself at risk.
Mary Molloy Solicitors are solicitors, not tax advisors. Tax information on this page is general in nature. You should obtain advice from a qualified tax advisor or accountant on your specific circumstances; we regularly work alongside clients’ accountants when implementing farm transfers.
What Succession Planning Involves
- The succession conversation: who farms next, when the handover happens, and what everyone else receives. Richard’s mediation training is often useful here.
- Title review: checking folios, maps, burdens, rights of way and any unregistered land before anything is signed.
- Formalising arrangements: converting handshake lettings into written leases and informal help into partnership or employment structures, so the position on the ground supports the plan. See land leasing and conacre.
- The deed of transfer: drafting the voluntary transfer with any reserved rights of residence, support and maintenance, and dealing with entitlements.
- Protecting both generations: the successor gets clean title; the older generation gets registered rights, an updated will and, where appropriate, an Enduring Power of Attorney.
- Registration: stamping and Land Registry registration, including first registration where needed.
Why Timing Is Everything
Several regimes reward early planning and punish late scrambles. Conditions attaching to reliefs can look at how the land was farmed or leased in the years before a transfer, and recent Finance Act changes extend active-farmer-style conditions to the person making the transfer, subject to transitional arrangements — your tax advisor will confirm the current position. Separately, the Fair Deal Scheme assesses assets transferred within the previous five years. A plan made five to ten years ahead of the intended handover keeps every option open; a plan made in the nursing home corridor forecloses most of them.
Why a TEP Matters
TEP (Trust and Estate Practitioner) is the designation of STEP, the international professional body for succession and estate practitioners. Farm succession sits squarely inside that discipline: lifetime transfers, reserved rights, wills that dovetail with the deed, provision for other children and estates that must be administered without breaking up the holding. Richard O’Shea brings both the solicitor’s conveyancing role and the TEP’s succession discipline to every farm handover, and works alongside your accountant on the tax dimension throughout.
Not sure where to start? Our free Farm Succession Planner turns your answers into a personalised checklist of the legal steps for your situation.
Plan the Handover Properly
One conversation with Richard O'Shea TEP will map the sequence of legal steps for your family's transfer.
Call 01 5827148