Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps it is more applicable to conveyancing and stamp duty liability rather than to renewed or new leases. I am happy with amendment No. 73.

The policy purpose is to make long-term leasing the norm. Why do we just go from five years to six years rather than from five years to seven or ten years? In the amendment to section 69 on conveyancing, there is a provision that the person who is a beneficiary of the conveyance is an active farmer or else leases it for a period of up to six years. Where he or she is an active farmer, he or she is obliged to be the holder of a prescribed qualification or meet the definition of a part-time farmer. Where someone inherits a farm and is an active farmer but dies and the spouse becomes the automatic inheritor, is there retrospective liability for stamp duty where people do not meet the educational qualification? Does it apply to the beneficiary at the time of the transfer, regardless of whether the person continues to meet the part-time farming requirement?