The New Tax Weather Front
Every farmer keeps one eye on the forecast. Storm clouds mean you must move quickly or risk losing the crop. The same now applies to inheritance tax.
In 2026, the new Business Property Relief (BPR) limits will land a heavy blow. Only the first £1 million of business assets now qualify for complete relief; anything above that amount receives 50% relief. A £3 million working farm could face an IHT bill of £400,000, and that’s before probate and valuation costs.
For generations, farmers have relied on BPR to keep the land in family hands. Yet HMRC’s definition of a trading farm has narrowed. A holding that rents too much land, contracts out key work, or runs too many passive lettings risks being reclassified as an investment, and that means losing BPR altogether.
So how do you protect the land without selling it, and keep control without paying outsiders to run your affairs?
Why Traditional Family Offices Don’t Work for Family Farms
The truth is that traditional family offices are impractical for families with less than £50 million in wealth.
They were built for billionaires, not working farms. Their annual fees can exceed £250,000; their advisers are city-based, and their focus rarely aligns with the realities of rural life.
Most farming families simply don’t have access to those services and wouldn’t benefit even if they did. Paying professional trustees or wealth managers to “administer” the family’s affairs is like hiring a London agronomist to tell you when to sow. You’ll get charts and jargon, but little that understands mud, margins, or the machinery bill.
That’s where the Mural Crown Self-Administered Family Office (Mural Crown SAFO) reclaims control.
Cold Storage for Your Equity
Imagine you’ve had a bumper harvest. You could sell the grain now or store it in a freezer where the value is locked, safe from rot or pests, until your children decide what to do with it.
That’s the principle behind Freezer Shares inside the Mural Crown SAFO.
By moving ownership of your farm into a company with alphabet share classes, you can freeze today’s value in your name while allowing all future growth to belong to your children or a family trust.
You keep voting control, the keys to the tractor, but the economic growth shifts beyond your taxable estate.
If the farm rises from £6 million to £8 million, that £2 million increase belongs to the next generation’s Growth Shares, not to you. When succession arrives, inheritance tax applies only to the frozen slice, not the growth.
It’s the equivalent of bottling milk at today’s price while the herd keeps producing for tomorrow.
Building a Mural Crown SAFO on the Farm
The Mural Crown SAFO is a bespoke holding company designed to act as your own family office, without external fees or loss of control.
Think of it as a modern grain store for your wealth: built once, used for generations, and entirely under family direction.
Within this structure:
- A-class shares hold voting rights and stay with the founders.
- Freezer Shares lock in existing value.
- Growth Shares are issued to trusts or children.
Alongside it sits a Fiduciary Company, managing internal loans and cash between ventures, whether that’s the main farm, a contracting division, or renewable projects.
Because the Mural Crown SAFO centralises ownership and accounting, profits remain within the family and deductible expenses reduce corporation tax directly.
The farm still trades as usual, with tractors running and livestock fed, but ownership and taxation now work with the precision of GPS-guided cultivation.
Case Study: The Williams Family, Wiltshire
David and Anne Williams run a mixed farm valued at £6 million, generating an annual profit of around £450,000.
Under the 2026 BPR cap, their children faced a potential £1 million inheritance tax bill, enough to force the sale of part of the farm.
On advice, they established Williams Holdings Ltd as a Mural Crown Self-Administered Family Office.
- They retained A-class voting shares.
- The £6 million value was captured in D-class Freezer Shares.
- Their Family Trust subscribed for E-class Growth Shares.
As the land appreciated by £1 million over three years, that gain accrued entirely to the trust, outside the parents’ estate.
David and Anne had a modest income, with each drawing a £12,570 salary and £37,700 in dividends, taxed at 8.75%, resulting in an effective personal tax rate of roughly 6%.
Most farm-related costs, including machinery, building work, and diversification, were paid directly within the Mural Crown SAFO, reducing its corporation tax bill.
Only when the couple needed funds for personal, non-business expenses, such as family weddings or private property improvements, did they redeem a portion of their Freezer Shares, qualifying those redemptions for Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) at 14–18%.
No acres sold. No control lost. And their inheritance exposure fell by almost 80%, while management stayed entirely in family hands.
Why Freezer Shares Beat Professional Trustees
- Control stays local.
Decision-making remains with the family, not distant trustees.
- Tax is harvested intelligently.
Freezer Shares separate ownership from growth, keeping appreciation outside the founder’s estate.
- Costs drop to farm-gate levels.
The Mural Crown SAFO operates on standard company filings and trustee minutes, not six-figure retainers.
It is cheaper and more tax-efficient than family offices run by professional trustees because most costs are borne inside the company, offsetting corporation tax.
- Succession works like crop rotation.
Shares are transferred between trusts and children over time, maintaining family control across generations.
- Versatile for diversification.
The same holding company can own farmland, renewable energy projects, cottages, or trading enterprises, each ring-fenced but governed under one consistent umbrella.
From Field to Institution
A good farm endures because it treats land as a trust between generations.
The Mural Crown Self-Administered Family Office does the same for wealth.
It transforms a family farm into a family institution, resilient to tax changes, government shifts, and inheritance disputes.
Most farmers spend a lifetime improving soil yet neglect to secure the ownership structure that keeps the family rooted.
With the 2026 IHT reset approaching, now is the moment to strengthen that foundation.
Freeze today’s value.
Let the next generation reap the growth.
And keep the gate closed to outsiders who’ve never worked your soil.
