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Whilst ownership of the agricultural property enables a person to qualify for the relief¹, the alternative is to satisfy the tests for occupation of the property².

Occupation has the advantage that the relevant qualifying period is two years whereas it is seven years for ownership. Even where seven years ownership is relied on, the agricultural property must have been occupied for the purposes of agriculture throughout that period by somebody, not necessarily the transferor. In relation to houses and buildings, the question of whether there has been occupation for agricultural purposes is closely related to the question of whether the house or building was a farmhouse or farm building at the relevant time (see I7.305).

The basic requirement is that the transferor must have occupied the property at the date of transfer for agricultural purposes, and must have occupied it throughout the two years ending with that date. He need not, however, have owned it during the whole of the period. If, for example, he occupied the property as a tenant for one year