Client is parenting two children alone and farming land owned by a family trust. The trust owes another trust a significant sum, has multiple variations downs, and owns the farm, a cottage, and all farm plant, equipment, and livestock. The trust and the ownership structure were unfit for purpose. Client was negotiating the purchase of a portion of neighbouring land, to be purchased in partnership with two other trusts (one based overseas) and farmed with the new partners. Each partner required risk minimisation and a separation of their individual farming activities from the new partnership arrangements.

Carlile Dowling’s involvement

We helped the client with risk minimisation, the tricky negotiation of purchasing the adjoining land, sorting GST issues, restructuring the current land and business operation, and structuring and documenting the new partnership arrangements. This required a new Trust, selling the current Trust’s property to the new Trust, incorporating a new farming company, selling the farming chattels to that company, distributing various debts owed to the current Trust, winding up the current Trust, novating debt, forming a new land-owning partnership, forming a farming partnership, selling a portion of the farm to the land-owning partnership, amalgamating land, obtaining new titles, a farm lease between the new Trust and the new farming company, and a farm lease between new land-owning partnership and farming partnership. We dealt with four other parties’ solicitors, a valuer, accountants in NZ and overseas, and mortgagees for the various parties, to explain and obtain agreement to the proposed structure, document all the transactions and attend to complex financing and security arrangements.

The client now has a safe, modern, and efficient structure to develop and protect family wealth for future generations.