She was in New Zealand late last year with a group of Irish dairy farmers and is well qualified to speak on the subject of succession, especially when it comes to how women are treated.
“I’m the daughter whose brother got the farm and I got nothing and I then became the dreaded daughter-in-law, so I know how it feels,” she said.
On top of that the break-up of her marriage to a dairy farmer meant she had to leave the farm that had been her home for 25 years. But far from being bitter, the cheerful Welsh woman can call on her experience to gently help families work through the often difficult succession process.
She trained under leading Australian succession facilitator Lyn Sykes and said that at the outset, well before tax and legal implications are dealt with, it’s important to ensure everyone in the family has a chance to be heard.
“It can be a very uncomfortable topic with some people not confident enough to speak up so no one knows what they’re feeling.”
She said it’s important for her to speak to each person individually in the family meeting.
“No one is allowed to interrupt and it has the advantage that the rest of the family are sitting there listening – something very rare in some families,” she said.
“They often get to hear things they have never heard before.”
They’re not necessarily just bad things but the approach means no one is left “simmering away” in the corner.
At the start there can be an air of tension.
“But as the day goes on the weight comes off and you can feel the tension disappear often to a sense of relief and real excitement.”
From her own experience and the eight years she’s been working with UK families she warned that parents should be careful about viewing a new partner as the “dreaded daughter-in-law” as the mistrust projected towards her can, in itself, put enormous pressure on relationships and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
She recalled one woman with an off farm career who put most of her earnings into doing up the old farm cottage she and her husband lived in on the family farm where the parents still lived. After many months a lawyer’s letter arrived asking her to sign away any claim she might make over the cottage even though no one in the family had raised the matter with her.
“That put an awful lot of strain on the relationships in that family; she was made to feel like an outsider,” Bushell said.
She also reminded older generation wives to remember they, too, were the daughter-in-law once.
“I had one case where a woman had been married for about five years but as a sign of good faith to the family wanted to sign an agreement stating she wasn’t going to make any claim to the family farm should the marriage break up.
“But I reminded her that hers wasn’t the only marriage in the family business and if it was good enough for her to sign it then perhaps her mother-in-law might be expected to as well.”
The same sensitivity and fairness needed to be afforded to a new son-in-law. Most succession issues could be dealt with by simply having good communication within the family right from when children are young, she said.
“Pre-nup (nuptial) agreements should be discussed and worked out before children reach an age when they have a serious partner otherwise they become personal,” she said.
But farmers should seek advice in drawing them up and discuss with their lawyers how they fit in to the overall structure of the farming business.
In NZ they’re known as Section 21 agreements under the Property Relationships Act.
Her discussion with families will often include talking to the senior generation about what retirement means to them and how they see their daily life playing out if they take a lesser role in the day-to-day running of the farm.
Farmers can be notorious for not developing other interests outside the farm so it’s important to have that discussion, she said. They might need reassurance they’ll still be valued and not put out to pasture.
Once everyone feels secure and comfortable in the discussion, ideas about how to achieve everyone’s desired outcomes begin to flow.
Bushell said the group meetings are structured and as ideas are discussed an action plan is drawn up with advice from lawyers and accountants or tax advisors then sought.
But succession planning is also about being prepared for the unexpected – an accidental death or a serious, debilitating accident can create havoc for a family farming business, adding intense pressure to an already difficult situation.
Enduring powers of attorney should also be put in place early so if anything unexpected happens key decisions can be made and the farming business can continue to operate.
Enduring power of attorney requires legal steps to invoke but if it hasn’t been prepared and signed up before a key person becomes incapacitated the process can be lengthy and problematic for the business. Wills should be discussed with the beneficiaries so there were no surprises.
“Challenging wills and fighting in families can blow them apart.”
Six steps to succession success
• Communicate.
• Start early; discuss succession as soon as you have children.
• Look at using the family business to grow other opportunities for each child.
• Embrace the daughter-in-law/son-in-law rather than having a siege mentality against them.
• Prepare pre-nuptial agreements before children have a serious partner.
• You don't have to be equitable to be fair.
