As well as the challenges faced by any business, farming businesses have numerous additional challenges. Owners of rural businesses need to be resourceful, flexible and downright tough! Lawyers who work with them, need to understand the issues that uniquely face rural clients, including the uncertainty of weather, disease and markets and rural family dynamics. They need to be across a wide range of rural legal issues. Ian has worked with many rural clients for over 25 years (in particular in the grazing and sugar industries) and has a deep understanding the legal, commercial and personal issues they face.
Ian's legal agribusiness experience includes:
- succession planning;
- structuring and restructuring of rural enterprises;
- development of value added rural enterprises;
- buying, selling and leasing rural property and farming businesses;
- negotiating with banks about to foreclose;
- rural joint ventures;
- agistment and sharefarming agreements;
- resumption compensation claims;
- negotiations with mining companies for land management agreements and compensation;
- land tenure, land management and water resource issues; and
- advising on native title issues.