Who owns the land?
Four ways to share a piece of ground between people who are not all your children — and what each one actually costs.
Someone owns land and wants a few other people to have a stake in it. There are only four shapes this takes, and the choice is made for you by two things: who needs to be able to sell or mortgage their share, and how much tax you are willing to pay for it. The legal form is the easy part. The tax and the exit are what people get wrong.
1. Shares in the whole thing
Everyone becomes an owner of the entire holding, with an undivided share each — technically, tenants in common. No company, no registration, done by deed.
- Cheapest and fastest.
- The trap: any one owner can force a sale of the whole, and a death, divorce or bankruptcy of one owner drags everyone else in. You need unanimity to do anything material, unless you have written an agreement saying otherwise.
- Only works with a co-ownership agreement covering: who may sell and to whom, pre-emption rights, how the price is set, what happens on death, who decides on capital works, and how a deadlock breaks. Without that document this option is a slow-burn dispute.
2. Split the land into separate sites
Carve out sites and transfer each one to a named person. This is the only option that gives people a genuinely sellable asset — which is exactly why it is the most expensive.
- Each site needs its own planning permission to be built on, its own wastewater solution, water supply and safe access.
- Land taken out of agricultural use stops qualifying for agricultural tax reliefs, and a fragmented holding gets harder to farm.
- Buy nothing, promise nothing, until a site suitability test has been done. A site that cannot percolate cannot be built on, whatever the ownership says.
3. A body owns the land
A company limited by guarantee, a co-operative society, or a company limited by shares holds the land; the people hold membership or shares.
| Vehicle | Notes |
|---|---|
| CLG | Community-owned standard. Members, not shareholders; profits locked in; cheap to incorporate; audit exemption usually available. |
| Co-operative society | Member-owned with share capital, but a minimum of seven founding members and a mandatory annual audit. |
| Company limited by shares | The only form where people hold real tradeable shares — but it is not a co-op and carries ordinary company compliance. |
The catch with all of them. If the body owns the land, the members own the body, not the land. Leaving means selling a share in a company whose main asset is a field — for which there may be no buyer at all. Work out the exit before you work out the entry.
4. Keep the land, give long leases
You stay the owner and grant each household a long lease or licence over a defined site, in writing. This is the shape most community land trusts use in practice.
- Why it usually wins: the freehold does not move, so there is no stamp duty or gift tax on a transfer of the land; you keep the asset and control who comes next; and everything is governed by the lease you wrote. But the lease is not tax-free. A lease is chargeable in its own right under the LEASE head of Schedule 1: for a term of over 35 and up to 100 years the rate on the rent is 6 per cent, and a nominal or below-market rent brings a notional premium into charge. It can also be treated as a deemed voluntary disposition, with possible gift-tax consequences. Budget for it and take advice. (Revenue, Stamp Duty Manual Part 5: Leases)
- Why it fails in practice: a house on a leasehold site is very hard to mortgage — most lenders will not touch it. You are asking people to pay cash or self-build. And whoever holds the land becomes a permanent property manager, wanted or not.
- Do not draft this yourself. A lease with no repairing obligations, no dispute clause and no exit is worse than no lease at all.
5. The tax bill on giving land away
Two taxes land at once, and they apply to gifts, not just sales.
- Stamp duty: non-residential property — which includes farmland — is charged at 7.5% of value, on sale or by gift.
- Consanguinity relief cuts that to 1%, but only between close relations — children, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Friends and unrelated members do not qualify. Note that a transfer between spouses is separately exempt from stamp duty altogether (s.96, Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999), so this relief mostly matters for blood relatives. The relief as it stands runs only to 31 December 2028. (Oireachtas PQ, 27 July 2021; Revenue stamp duty manual) The land must be farmed for six years afterwards, and the person receiving it must hold an agricultural qualification or spend at least half their working time farming.
- Gift tax (CAT) is 33% above a lifetime threshold that depends on the relationship: €400,000 from a parent, €40,000 from a sibling, niece, nephew or grandchild, and €20,000 from anyone else — including friends.
Worked example — gifting a €60,000 site to a friend:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gift tax on €60,000 less the €20,000 threshold — €40,000 at 33% | €13,200 |
| Stamp duty at 7.5% of €60,000 (no consanguinity relief for a friend) | €4,500 |
| Total tax on a €60,000 gift | ≈ €17,700 (29.5%) |
That arithmetic is what kills "give a few friends a plot each". A long lease delivers the same result on the ground for none of that tax — and you keep the land.
Three things people get wrong:
- A €1 transfer is still taxed on market value. Revenue wants a valuation, and the tax follows the value, not the consideration.
- Agricultural relief is conditional. It can reduce gift tax on qualifying agricultural property by 90%, but only if the beneficiary passes the farmer tests — and land taken out of farming for housing does not qualify.
- Reliefs have clawbacks. The six-year farming conditions mean the relief is withdrawn if the land stops being farmed.
6. What this looks like at scale
Ireland's first ecovillage, at Cloughjordan, is the case study worth reading before you commit: a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, run along co-operative principles and registered as a charity; about 67 acres; roughly €15,000 of member investment each; land bought through a social lender plus members' loans; 36 planning conditions; and ten years between forming the company and the first residents moving in. Ownership of the common land was still being argued about years after people had moved in. (The Mint Magazine, Commons Sense)
Two lessons transfer to any size of project:
- Settle who owns the shared ground before anyone builds on it. This is the single most reliable cause of long, corrosive disputes in shared-land projects.
- Buy land after planning confidence, not before. The groups that buy first and apply later are the ones that run out of money.
7. Deciding
- Does anyone need to be able to sell or mortgage? If no, use leases. If yes, you are into tax.
- Is the group family? Then consanguinity relief and higher gift-tax thresholds apply, and splitting sites may be affordable.
- Is the group unrelated friends or members? Then leases are usually the only sane option, because a freehold gift costs about 30%.
- Does the land need to keep farming? Then check every relief's conditions before you split anything.
- Who is the long-term steward when the founders are gone? Write that down.
8. Sources
- Stamp duty on non-residential property (7.5%) and the farm reliefs — Department of Finance, agricultural taxation.
- Consanguinity relief (1%), its conditions and its 2028 end date — Revenue stamp duty manual and Oireachtas PQ, 27 July 2021.
- Gift tax thresholds and rate (€400,000 / €40,000 / €20,000; 33%) — Citizens Information.
- Agricultural relief (90% reduction, and its farmer tests) — McMahon Legal.
- Cloughjordan's structure, financing and timeline — case study, Cloughjordan Ecovillage and The Mint Magazine.
- Community land trusts and the Affordable Housing Act 2021 — Housing Agency.
Not legal or tax advice. Rates and thresholds change. Take the numbers to a solicitor and an accountant before any transfer, and get the tax position in writing.
Free to copy, adapt and pass on.