Land Deals

[Erik Narramore]

Nevill's purchase of land for Peter:

That was a third of a third of Peter's mother's land that the brother had inherited.  This means that Peter and Ann retained their own third share that they had inherited from John Eaton (the one who punched Nevill).

But this means that even if Jeremy intended to sell the smaller portion of land, that's just the land inherited from his mother; Peter and Ann would still have retained the greater part of the land Peter inherited from John, regardless of what Jeremy intended.

Speaking of which, what is the evidence that Jeremy proposed to sell the land or communicated this to the Eatons?  Come to mention of it, what is the evidence Jeremy even knew that Nevill owned the land?  And were there title deeds?

There's also the legal dimension to this.  I can't accept that Jeremy could have just thrown the Eatons off agricultural land they were working and that probably didn't even have planning consent for development.  If Jeremy really did indicate he wished to sell, it's much more likely that this would have been put in the hands of lawyers and the Eatons would have ended up having to pay farm rent to Jeremy - an outcome Jeremy may even have preferred.

Overall, I don't see a strong motive for framing Jeremy as an innocent man, but I do accept that there could have been a motivating drive to make him a suspect in the belief he did it and that belief may have been driven by bias, and this bias may have had its root in a perception that the family's own interests conflicted with Jeremy's interests.  In the end, the result is the same, so the distinction I am making may seem pedantic to some.

[Erik Narramore]

As a minimum, Jeremy and his supporters need to provide proof that -

Jeremy owned most of the relatives farm land.

Jeremy planned to sell the Eaton's farm land to pay death duties.

The relatives were aware of this days after the massacre.

Jeremy's extra stake in the caravan park effected the other relatives stake.[/li][/list]

I think the whole theory of a family conspiracy may fall down on point 1: even if Jeremy inherited the one-third of Peter's mother's land that Nevill bought, that was still only a small part of the Eatons' land.

And that's before we get into the complexities of farm business tenancies, planning consents, land options, articles of association and so on, which the Eatons would have had some understanding of as working farmers and landowners.

[Erik Narramore]

On the first page of the thread David links to, Mike has posted up a note of the COLP interview of Peter Eaton.

What Peter told COLP about the land is this:

He, his brother and his mother inherited land from his father, John, split three ways. (As an aside, John was the one who punched Nevill, but that was an entirely separate incident, I believe.  This is often wrongly blamed on Peter).

Peter and his brother split the mother's one-third equally - i.e. 50:50.  (I incorrectly referred to it as one-third as for some reason I had in mind that there were three siblings, but on looking again in fact I see there were just two, so the split of the mother's land is half - it doesn't change the point, though).

The half of the mother's land that went to the brother, is what Peter persuaded Nevill to buy into order to stop his brother selling to property developers.

My point is that, when you take all this into account, it means that Peter and Ann Eaton own their own land, plus half of the land inherited from the mother.  Even if Jeremy knew about the Eaton land that Nevill owned and intended to sell it, the Eatons retained ownership of most of their land.  Jeremy could not have ended their livelihoods.

[Erik Narramore]

I thought there was a wallpaper incident at Vaulty Manor or Oak Farm?  Maybe I've misremembered what I read.

It seems reasonable that Jeremy would ask the Eatons to pay back the land, but I wonder why he didn't just rent it to them?  A lot seems to be made of the estate's inheritance tax bill and the need to liquidate capital to meet it, but surely the Bambers took advice on how to make arrangements so that the estate would be tax efficient?  It's not difficult and any competent high street solicitor specialising in private client work and familiar with agricultural law would have assisted.

[Erik Narramore]

After Jeremy was convicted, there was an Agricultural Land Tribunal, as it was then called.  The parties were Jeremy, the Henry Smith Charity and the Eatons (Ann and Peter).