[Closed] How's about we all clump together and buy a mountain?

"And we don't want to have to evict tenanted farmers and other tenants and what have you from their houses so we can sell them."

Not that I do either. 😕

Here is my pound, i want to own the pebble at the top, please.

Awesome! Blencathra's a lovely mountain. All the tracks on it are currently footpaths and it would make a great uplift style mountain with bike lifts like ski lifts. I've walked up it several times & it always struck me how nice it would be to ride, lots of choices for your run down.

Why do these estate owners not pass it on to their children earlier on to avoid the inheritence tax? It seems that they cling onto it, reluctant to give it to their kids and thus the kid gets stung with a huge bill only payable by selling off a part of the estate, thereby shrinking its size over the years ❓

£9 million tax bill from his father's inheritance?
Poor bastard. Surely a call to "big Dave" in downing street would wipe that slate clean.

qwerty - that would be because you can only gift an amount to any one person each year without it counting towards inheritance tax limit. It used to be £7k, may well be more now. There are othger loophols though I believe....

Some very nice descents off the front of Blencathra. 🙂
Not that I'd have every ridden any you understand, what with them all being footpaths an'all 😉

I'm game for throwing twenty quid in the pot. Just need another 100,000 people and we can hand it over the the NT.

Or, we could not give HMRC £1.75m and have exactly the same mountain to enjoy for nowt!

Effectively, we already own it, though having the perfect riposte to angry red-socks is tempting.

shame there's not a current Beatrix Potter to purchase it and bequeath it to the nation.

or we don't and we encourage the govt to sieze the asset as payment then give it to the NT to manage so that HMRC get their cash as dripfeed from the tenants/small businesses etc

Why do these estate owners not pass it on to their children earlier on to avoid the inheritence tax?

Because those sorts of sums changing hands would still be taxed. My uncle won a few million on the lottery and it was quite difficult to give any large sums of it away without incurring big tax losses. Also you don't generally pass on your estate to your children (plural) just to one. Estates need to be huge otherwise they don't work, if you split them with each generation you end up with several large, loss making encumbrances rather than one functioning, income generating estate.

If you pass it all on to one then its difficult to decide which of your ****less idiot offspring will make the least worst hash of it all, and if you make the wrong decision you've got to watch them arse it all up from the sidelines as well as deal with any family fall out that results. Better to have all that happen after you're dead.

It would be a different deal if we had the Japanese tradition o[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption ]f adopting adults[/url] where you recruit the best candidate to inherit your estate then legally adopt them.

In this case its a no-loose situation to sell the mountain (instead of selling a few tenanted properties), those properties are the goose that lays the golden eggs, if you sell them your estate income falls but your outgoings don't. Nobody pays rent to use the mountain and as the estate owner you don't loose the view of the mountain or access to, but you do shed any responsibility to maintain a highly trafficked bit of countryside. But that traffic is still attracting B&B nights and coffee and cake sales in properties that you still get rent from.

1.75 million? Thats a bit steep...

I'll need to see the mowing rota before I commit

wot macc says. it's also preferable to the french system whereby the bulk of your estate is statutorily given to your children. You cant favour or disinherit any of them. So you end up with big old piles owned by 3 or 4 people without a common desire to maintain/manage it so they let it fall into disrepair.

BTW, put me down for a £100 as long as I have my own named Audi car parking space.

I'd want it cleaned up a bit, some of the rocky bits look rather grey for my liking and it could do with better lighting on the footpaths.

The National Trust should buy it, in fact I am surprised there hasn't been a deal between the HMRC and him to allow him to donate it to the NT in return for a reduction in the tax bill.

There is no inheritance tax on farms, that prevents nonsense on agricultural land. As he says there are other family assets he doesn't want to sell and has to raise money this way.

@Jekyll, you won't get planning permission to put ski lifts there. I personally would resist any such application.

I was thinking about this on the way to work. I assume that because it is so cheap you wouldn't be able to alter the land use / access rights so putting lifts, mtb trails etc in would be a non-starter?

it's also preferable to the french system whereby the bulk of your estate is statutorily given to your children. You cant favour or disinherit any of them.

That can be easily sidestepped by creating an SCI (Société Civile Immobilier) or in the case of buying a grazed mountain a GFA (Groupement Foncier Agricole) communal. Is there no equivalent of this in the UK?

The Lonsdales do seem as if they can't be arsed to manage the land, which is a pity.

Can we upgrade later to a range of mountains?
A nice long xc route with bivi spots, complete with coffee shop, would be great.
Suggest we ask DCC to do the trail maintenance.

Blencathra for £1.75m? You could buy Bencathro for £1.75p and he's taller.

I'll get me coat.

Would it not make more sense to get together and buy some non scenic mountain/hill? Perhaps, oh let's say Plora Craig and surrounding environs... FC can have logging rights as long as they don't trash the trails.

qwerty - that would be because you can only gift an amount to any one person each year without it counting towards inheritance tax limit. It used to be £7k, may well be more now. There are othger loophols though I believe....

Hmm well the problem is if you give something to someone then die within 7 years inheritance tax is still due. The 'other side' of my family have an estate and it has been given to the eldest son. You do need to move out of the property though so it's a proper transfer so the son lives in the main house whilst the father has moved to the gatehouse.

or we don't and we encourage the govt to sieze the asset as payment then give it to the NT to manage so that HMRC get their cash as dripfeed from the tenants/small businesses etc

I read somewhere the 'income' from the mountain is in the order of thousands (not even tens of thousands) a year, it doesn't really fit the value = income/0.07 rule that you'd probably use to value other assents.

It's more like buying a piece of art, £1.75million is over valuing it as land for farming. Hence the "I hope some crazy russian buys it" comment.

After Loughrigg and Helvellyn, Blencathra is my favourite mountain. I would want to keep it largely bike free though so that counts me out.

I would prefer a "deal" with NT. Time for a letter to Simon Jenkins !

+1 maccruiskeen & stoner. Add in the fact that the original bequest means there's a host of legal snags* to prevent easy management of the estate (often created before death duties were introduced), and often being an aristo is a bit of a cash-strapped PITA.

TBH, £1.75m isn't all that. It'll be bought.

*Technical legal term. I think they relied on the same on legal principles in an episode of Downton Abbey....

I see someone's trying to set up a trust (headed by Sir Chris Bonington) to buy it.

I will go up to £100. As landowners we would be entitled to ride and Bivi where and when we want . We could all be joint lords and use the stw logo as our coat of arms.

Id guess that the majority of them behind the Friends of Blencathra are going to be nimby redsox who wont be opening up any MTB access anytime soon. We'd need to outbid them!

Id guess that the majority of them behind the Friends of Blencathra are going to be nimby redsox who wont be opening up any MTB access anytime soon. We'd need to outbid them!

I don't think we could outbid them, or even mount a successful bid without them. There'd be a need to make sure MTBers are represented on any trust board.

I'll provide the sheep. Bit short of 5,000 at the moment but 50ish is a good start, isn't it?

Will use the fleeces to knit the coat of arms onto jumpers.

Farming families or families with big estates can all be a bit weird. Often the father won't let go and relationships go bad with the children.

Hmm well the problem is if you give something to someone then die within 7 years inheritance tax is still due. The 'other side' of my family have an estate and it has been given to the eldest son. You do need to move out of the property though so it's a proper transfer so the son lives in the main house whilst the father has moved to the gatehouse.

^^^ this. Sadly some fathers who have farmed the land don't think that their place is in the gatehouse.

They are now trying to crowdsource the funds
http://buyblencathra.weebly.com/about.html
Despite it being a walkers website, it may be a time to support the cause and make sure that there are no future issues around ownership.
andylakes

If we all clumped together, we'd probably BE a mountain.

Or at least, a small hill.

Just spilt my coffee...