About Us

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Minihan McAlister is a law firm catering for the agricultural and rural sectors. We are experienced solicitors offering traditional values with a modern approach. We provide solid legal advice, but also truly excellent customer service. Find out more about our team by following this link.

Rural and agricultural issues are often complex and diverse, thereby benefitting from a team approach. We bring a collective energy to solving your problems, utilising individual talents and sharing knowledge and experience.

Our aim is to be different.

All of our clients are given direct contact numbers and a secretary will only take the call if we are genuinely unavailable. We take the time to know you, your business, your needs and your challenges to ensure that we can give you the best support possible.

Our working model is based on flexibility. We are not constrained to 9am-5pm working hours and will do our best to speak to you at your convenience. If you want us to meet you at your workplace, your home or your agent’s offices then we are happy to travel to you.

Our approach to fees is wholly transparent and based on value to you rather than time spent by us. We count achievements, not hours and will provide you with fixed fee quotes wherever possible.

Minihan McAlister has been recognised by Chambers and Partners and is a ranked firm for agriculture and rural affairs.

Our team

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Jayne Minihan
Jayne Minihan
Solicitor
T: 01228 217218
E: jayne@minihanmcalister.co.uk
Jayne is an experienced solicitor, whose expertise lies in property law, including both commercial and agricultural property and tenancies involving the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. Jayne qualified in 2004 and set up Minihan McAlister with Sam in 2013.

Jayne provides specialist advice in relation to renewable energy schemes and telecommunication masts, and has a particular interest in residential and commerical development, acting for landowners and developers in the negotiation of options, conditional contracts, joint venture agreements and promotional agreements.

Jayne is a member of the Agricultural Law Association.


Sam McAlister
Sam McAlister
Solicitor
T: 01228 217218
E: sam@minihanmcalister.co.uk
Sam advises on a wide range of agricultural issues and has significant experience in dealing with agricultural tenancies and commons law. Sam spent 6 years at a local firm working alongside a leading agricultural specialist before setting up Minihan McAlister.

Sam has established a large number of commons associations throughout England and regularly advises on the Commons Act 2006. Sam also advises on Wills, Estate Planning and Trusts.

Sam is a member of the Agricultural Law Association and is the Tenant Farmers Association Recommended Professional for legal services in the North West of England. Chambers and Partners have recognised Sam as a notable practitioner in Agricultural Law

Agricultural Tenancies

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We advise both landlords and tenants on their rights and obligations when dealing with tenancies of agricultural land. We have comprehensive knowledge of the issues arising under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

Key areas of expertise include the following:

  • Negotiating and drafting farm business tenancies, grazing licences and deeds of surrender
  • Advising on rent reviews
  • Serving and advising on notices to quit, notices to remedy and notices to pay
  • Advising on claims for repairs and dilapidations
  • Advising on succession planning
  • Acting on behalf of landlords and tenants on succession applications

Land Diversification

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The agricultural sector is increasingly subject to European and domestic regulation. We have experience in advising farmers and landowners on their regulatory obligations.

Key areas of expertise include the following:

  • Advising on subsidy claims and appeals
  • Advising on reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy
  • Acting in connection with disputes involving DEFRA

Farm Sales & Purchases

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We advise both sellers and purchasers on land transactions involving all aspects of rural property, including sales and purchases of farms and agricultural land.

We deal with all related elements of sales and purchases of rural property, including the following:

  • Mortgages and charges
  • Option agreements and pre-emption agreements
  • Clawback and overage provisions
  • Occupancy issues
  • Covenants
  • Easements
  • Environmental stewardship schemes and single farm payment

Business Structures

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We take the time to understand your business and the commercial implications of changes to your business structure, and work closely with other professionals, including accountants and land agents, to ensure that all matters are dealt with efficiently and practically.

Partnerships remain the most common form of business structure in the agricultural sector, but we can assist with advising on a variety of business structures.

Key areas of expertise include the following:

  • Drafting partnership agreements
  • Advising on claims under the Partnership Act 1890
  • Advising on issues arising on the death or retirement of a partner and dissolution of a partnership
  • Advising on land ownership within a business structure and drafting the necessary deeds, licences and tenancies

Wills & Estate Planning

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Wills should be as simple, clear and concise as possible to ensure that your wishes are carried out. We work closely with other professionals to draft your Will as tax efficiently as possible, using our specialist knowledge to help you with your estate planning.

Agricultural property relief and business property relief are of particular relevance to farmers and landowners. We liaise with your tax advisors when considering your inheritance tax position to ensure that you structure your financial affairs in the most appropriate manner.

Specialist Rural Issues

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A large proportion of our clients are farmers and rural landowners and we therefore deal with specialised, obscure and discrete areas of property law, including:

  • First registrations of unregistered land, including complex and large estates
  • Commons law, including the Commons Act 2006 and the establishment of commons associations
  • Advising on town and village greens
  • Planning law, including section 38 agreements, section 104 agreements and section 106 agreements
  • Proprietory and estoppel claims
  • Manorial rights and third party reservations, including sporting, fishing and mines and minerals

Commercial Leases

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We act for landlords, tenants, developers, investment institutions and banks in connection with:

  • Offices and financial services leases
  • Retail leases
  • Industrial leases
  • Options and energy leases
  • Mines and minerals leases
  • Lease assignments and purchases of leasehold interests in office, retail and industrial properties
  • Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Notices and lease renewal procedures

Commercial Property Sales & Purchases

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We advise sellers, purchasers, investment institutions and lenders in connection with acquistions and disposals of all types of commerical property, including:

  • Green-field and brown-field sites for office, retail, residential or industrial development
  • Vacant or occupied retail, office and industrial units
  • Multiple portfolio properties and estates for retail, office and industrial use
  • Mortgages and re-mortgages of commerical properties

We also deal with ongoing estate management of portfolios and estates and any lending requirements including mortgages and remortgages. We work alongside your accountants, surveyors and land agents to effect the most tax efficient structure wherever possible.

Land Development

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Our agricultural and commerical experience makes us well suited to rural land diversification with expertise in acting for both land owners and developers.

Key areas of expertise include the following:

  • Options for land development
  • Conditional contracts
  • Joint venture agreements
  • Promotion agreements
  • Clawback and overage agreements
  • Development and planning agreements including S104 and S106 agreements
  • Deeds of easement and wayleaves

Renewables & Reserve Energy Schemes

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We advise both landowners and developers on land transactions relating to renewable energy schemes involving wind, solar, water and other low carbon developments and the reserve generation of gas and electricity including:

  • Options for energy leases
  • Energy leases
  • Direct funding agreements
  • Sub-station leases
  • Cable easements
  • Compound licences

Privacy Policy

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Minihan McAlister Limited (“We”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting www.minihanmcalister.co.uk you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

This website is owned by Minihan McAlister Limited, who is the ‘Data Controller’ for the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulations (“GDPR”). Minihan McAlister Limited is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Register of Data Controllers.

The website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites. To comply with GDPR, we adhere to strict security procedures. The personal information which we hold will be held securely to ensure no unauthorised disclosure or access.

The type of information which we may collect about you includes:

  • your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address;
  • your occupation and interests;
  • the information included in any documents you provide;
  • details about the services you specifically request; and
  • details of your visits to our site.

We do not collect sensitive information about you without your explicit consent.

By submitting your information, you consent to the use of that information as set out in this document. If we change our terms and conditions we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the Website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times.

Why we collect personal information

The information you provide to us when using our website will be used to process requests for advice or information supplied by us, update our website to address common enquiries and search categories, update you in relation to any changes to our services and comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations.

For existing clients, we may contact you by email to provide you with information about other services, which we believe may be of interest to you. Such services will be of a similar nature as those for which we had previously been instructed by you.

How we store your personal information

Information which we collect about you is stored electronically on our database, although it may also be printed and stored in our filing system. It will not be disclosed to unrelated third parties except as otherwise stated in this policy.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data as it is transmitted to our site. Transmission of data is therefore undertaken at your own risk. We employ strict security features to try and protect your personal data.

We undertake to keep your personal information confidential except to the extent that we are compelled to disclose it by law (for example where fraud or other crime is involved), to comply with an instruction of a regulatory body of competent jurisdiction (such as the Law Society), to satisfy our auditors, to comply with anti-money laundering or other statutory regulations or if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, in order to enforce or apply our terms of business and other agreements or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Minihan McAlister Limited, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Opting in

Unless you specify otherwise, submitting a question or comment or registering for a newsletter or event on this website automatically opts you in to our promotional mailing list.

You agree that Minihan McAlister shall be free to send you from time to time additional product or company information, including newsletters, product advertisements and/or announcements. Each newsletter, advertisement etc will also provide an opportunity for you to opt out at any time. We will never sell or disclose your email address to anyone.

Option to Opt-Out

If you no longer wish to receive any form of mailings from us, including seminar invitations, please email your request to info@minihanmcalister.co.uk

Contact Us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to info@minihanmcalister.co.uk

Complaints Procedure

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We want to give you the best possible service. However, if at any point you become unhappy or concerned about the service we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem.

In the first instance it may be helpful to contact the person who is working on your matter to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues at this stage. If you would like to make a formal complaint, then you can read our full complaints procedure here. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your case.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

What do to if we cannot resolve your complaint

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

  • Within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint, and
  • No more than six years from the date of act/omission; or
  • No more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Contact details

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

Website Terms of Use

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By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, you must not use our site. We may revise this acceptable use policy at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are legally binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in this policy may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our site.

Our details

minihanmcalister.co.uk is a site operated by Minihan McAlister Limited (we or us). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 08627194. Our registered office is at Warwick Mill Business Centre, Warwick Bridge, Carlisle, CA4 8RR. Our main trading address is Warwick Mill Business Centre, Warwick Bridge, Carlisle CA4 8RR. We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number [599169]

Content

We may update our site from time to time, and may change the content at any time. However, please note that any of the content on our site may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update it. We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will be free from errors or omissions.

Access

Our site is made available free of charge. We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. Access to our site is permitted on a temporary basis. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of our site without notice. We will not be liable to you if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period. You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.

Use of our site

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved. You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.

You may use our site only for lawful purposes. You may not use our site in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation, in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect, for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way, to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards, to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam), to knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.

Viruses

We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses. You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform in order to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial-of-service attack, or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our site or to your downloading of any content on it, or on any website linked to it.

You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

Linking

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it. You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists. You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.

Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with our content standards. If you wish to make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact info@minihanmcalister.co.uk.

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources. We assume no responsibility for the content of websites linked on our site. Such links should not be interpreted as endorsement by us of those linked websites. We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.

Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to our site or any content on it, whether express or implied. We will not be liable to any user for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with use of, or inability to use, our site or use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site. We will not be liable for loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation or any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

Applicable Law

If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, its subject matter and its formation, are governed by English law. By using this site, you agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Contact

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Email: info@minihanmcalister.co.uk
Telephone: 01228 217218
Fax: 01228 217018
By Post: Warwick Mill Business Centre
Warwick Bridge
Carlisle
Cumbria
CA4 8RR.

Available Postitions

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JOB: Legal Secretary
LOCATION: Based at Warwick on Eden, Carlisle, CA4 8RR
SALARY: Competitive and dependent on experience.
DETAILS: A fantastic opportunity has arisen with a highly regarded small and friendly law firm on the outskirts of Carlisle for a legal secretary to join the team. Flexible working arrangements will be considered.

The job role consists of supporting solicitors across various disciplines and involves audio and copy typing, filing, general administration, PA duties (diary management, arranging meetings), taking calls and filing emails and documents.

To be considered for this role, you will be experience as a legal secretary and ideally have worked in a property team. You will be a proficient user of Microsoft Office and have excellent written/verbal communication skills. You also will have good working knowledge of case management systems.

We are interviewing now for an immediate start so please apply for consideration by sending your cover letter and CV to Minihan McAlister, Warwick on Eden, Carlisle, CA4 8RR or info@minihanmcalister.co.uk