What contract paperwork is required?

[ferrariboi]

My brother leases some farmland to a solar farm business. The lease is 25yrs with about 15 yrs remaining. At the end of the lease the solar business are required to remove the panels and return the land to him as the found it (agricultural).

He has an income from the land rental linked to rpi until the lease expires.

He needs some cash, so I’ve agreed to buy the ‘income strip’ from now till the lease expires in 15 yrs for a lump sum now. He gets the cash lump sum and I receive the income for the next 15 yrs.

What paperwork will be required to explain the agreement with HMRC? He’ll pay CGT on the lump sum. I’ll offset some of the income against some borrowing to raise the capital now.

We both hate the way that lawyers can create conflict. For us it’s starightforward and we are hoping to have heads of terms followed by a simple agreement laying out the arrangements.

Many thanks in advance.

[rdjohn]

Personally, I would prefer to use a lawyer, but there are plenty of model forms of contract if you search online - like this one, the first one on Google listing

https://www.netlawman.co.uk/d/land-option-simple-a...

[surveyor]

A lease would be the normal way of doing this. You rent the same land as the solar company and agree to take the income during the term.

It's a bit specialist. Don't use a high street solicitor.

My day job involves working with thousands of sites with a similar arrangement. Don't cock it up - it might not matter now - but it might within the 15 years.

[ferrariboi]

Thank you. This is helpful. So a sub-lease would work? Would we require consent from the solar company, or is this not required?

[surveyor]

ferrariboi said:

Thank you. This is helpful. So a sub-lease would work? Would we require consent from the solar company, or is this not required?

Depends on the exact terms of the solar lease - but highly unlikely to need consent.

[rdjohn]

surveyor said:

A lease would be the normal way of doing this. You rent the same land as the solar company and agree to take the income during the term.

It's a bit specialist. Don't use a high street solicitor.

My day job involves working with thousands of sites with a similar arrangement. Don't cock it up - it might not matter now - but it might within the 15 years.

As a pro, how do you find your legal expertise?

When I have looked at the Law Society website, everyone seems to specialise in Conveyancing, property, Family Law, Criminal etc etc.

How donyou go about finding genuine expertise?

[surveyor]

rdjohn said:

surveyor said:

A lease would be the normal way of doing this. You rent the same land as the solar company and agree to take the income during the term.

It's a bit specialist. Don't use a high street solicitor.

My day job involves working with thousands of sites with a similar arrangement. Don't cock it up - it might not matter now - but it might within the 15 years.

As a pro, how do you find your legal expertise?

When I have looked at the Law Society website, everyone seems to specialise in Conveyancing, property, Family Law, Criminal etc etc.

How donyou go about finding genuine expertise?

We have in-house legal, although they do use externals.