(1)Arthur Frederick Golding (2)Julia Anne Middleton (executors of the will of Dennis Golding deceased) v Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Facts

Dennis Golding died on 4 March 2007 aged 81, owning Blue Gates Farm at Brookhay Lane, Whittington, Lichfield, Staffordshire, comprising a three-bedroom listed farmhouse, adjacent agricultural buildings and 16.29 acres of land. The farm had been bought for him by his father in 1940 and transferred into his name on 26 January 1965; he farmed it for the rest of his life. In its heyday the farm carried some 600 free range chickens, 7 to 10 cattle, fruit and vegetables, and produced milk, wheat, barley and oats. Activity declined from the 1980s, and by the end the deceased kept about 70 laying hens, selling eggs at the farm gate, with taxable farm profits falling from £1,586 in 2003/4 to £1,047 in 2006/7 — at best 25% of his total income. He had bought a new tractor and baler two years before his death and had been baling hay shortly before he died. HMRC issued a determination dated 17 December 2009 that the residence was not agricultural property within section 115(2) of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984, accepting that the land and buildings were agricultural but contending the house was not of a character appropriate to them. The executors, Arthur Frederick Golding and Julia Anne Middleton, appealed to the First-tier Tribunal.