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Zoë Atkinson

Senior Associate

About

Zoë is a senior associate in the Real Estate team and specialises in agricultural property. She acts on sales, purchases, mortgages and leases of agricultural and rural property for farmers, individuals, landed estates and investment clients, and negotiates overage and development clawback agreements and advises on protecting and enforcing them.

She has extensive experience of Agricultural Holdings Act Tenancies and Farm Business Tenancies, including implementing complex deals for the surrender of agricultural tenancies in exchange for cash consideration, the transfer of land or the grant of a new lease.

Zoë acts on the grant of agricultural, residential and commercial leases in a rural context and advises on estate management matters, such as restrictive covenants, easements and other issues relating to the ownership and occupation of rural property, including environmental schemes.

She is a member of the Agricultural Law Association, and regularly speaks on agricultural tenancies at conferences of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV).

Experience

An institutional investor: Acting on one of the largest UK farmland sales in recent years: selling two significant agricultural estates of over 8,350 acres for more than £100 million.
Trustees: Acting on the sale of an estate of c. 3000 acres, including arable land, woodland and various residential and commercial properties, for over £40 million.
The Crown Estate: Acting on numerous high value farm sales, including several from the same estate, often involving existing agricultural tenancies, clawback/overage arrangements and coordination of several buyers.
A large landowning organisation: Advising on an estate purchase involving simultaneous sub sales of part, fulfilling a co-ordinating role between seller and sub purchasers.
Landowners: Advising on complex restructuring of agricultural tenancies, including surrenders and new tenancies and transfers.
Landowners: Working with landowners with extensive landholdings to develop their own precedent agricultural tenancies, tailored to their environmental ambitions.