Problems on the Farm Transfer Arrangements

Abstract

Problems of transferring the farm to one heir are old but new ones. Even in U. S. where equal inheritance has been practised since the abolition of primogeniture and entail by Jefferson, keeping the farm in the family has become more and more urgent, with farm capital requirement at high level and with farms larger and fewer. Under these changing situation, the philosophy of distributing the property equally among several heirs has brought about many undersirable effects, some of which are serious. Frequently the death of the owner is followed by the disintegration of the farm. The farm is sold to settle the estate or land is divided into uneconomical units, or the heir who buy out the others must mortgage the farm. Especially for the operating heir whose contribution to the farm and parent has been great, it is unbearable to reorganize the disintegrated farm into a well balanced one and to go in a debt to buy the others that is beyond his earning power of the farm in times inflated land prices, like the present. So it becomes imperative to maintain the farm within the family without disturbing the essential unity of the farm as a going concern. However, the transfer of the farm as a going concern within the family conflicts with the equality of division prescribed by the law of descent and the security of the aged parent. Because as most of farmers use their farm as their “saving bank” and possess only limited outside savings, keeping the farm in the family tends to be a closed shop to the heirs except the farm successor and the transfer of the farm to the son at his early age frequently arises to give up the old parent's independence he earned and now he deserves. Thus to facilitate the intrafamily succession with minimum problems, better practices, not the change in the principle of the inheritance law, are being worked out and new practices such as gifts, annuities, purchase contracts and others are being taken. The purpose of this report is to analyze these inheritance problems and suggest the measures to meet them, mainly through the comparative study of the two researches in the eastern and southwestern part of Visconsin States made by Parsons, K. H., Waples, O. E. and Salter, L. A. Jr. in 1941. At the outset, through the analysis of the agricultural ladder in both districts, it is shown that in the eastern district many farmers climb the ladder elevatorlikely without stepping the tenancy and hired hand stage, and acquire the home farm early in their life, while in the southwestern partthe tenancy plays a significant role in climbing the ladder, and farmers generally acquire the home farm late in their life. It is also made clear that this defference in the agricultural ladder is asclibed to the difference in the succession practice. Then focussing upon this difference, in the latter district where the operatdrship of the farm is passed to the son after the retirement of the parent, but the title to the farm is not yet followed and as a result the division of farm property to heirs according to the law of descent after the death of the parent is generally practiced, an attempt is made to show that the operating son who remains on the home farm is never sure of his future ownership and, coming to a disasterous end, still remains the tenant after the death of the parent. Along with this, it is also made clear that estate settlement saddles the heir operator with a heavy debt that is beyond his long-term earning power of the farm.