Landwirtschaftliches Sondererbrecht in Zeiten agrarstrukturellen Wandels

The fragmented body of law governing the special rules of agricultural inheritance is characterized by a pronounced resistance to reform. Whereas the special inheritance regulations for agricultural holdings once pursued the aim of preventing farms from being broken up into smaller, economically unviable parcels and of "ensuring the nourishment of the population," these objectives can no longer be fully justified in light of profound structural changes in agriculture. The focus has now shifted to preserving a multifunctional agricultural sector, characterized by the fact that, alongside traditional food production, it increasingly fulfills regional, social, ecological, cultural, and societal functions. Moreover, the current legal framework is unable to adequately reflect the modern realities of agricultural enterprises. For example, the management of an agricultural operation has become increasingly complex, family structures have become more diverse, and more active estate planning is now common. In view of the dramatic upheavals occurring in agriculture, however, there remains a heightened need for a specially designed framework of inheritance law. The newly developed regulatory proposal aims to create a fair balance of interests between the heirs who do not take over the farm and those entitled to compulsory portions on the one hand, and the successor to the agricultural holding on the other. Its objective is to mitigate, at least in the area of inheritance law, the challenges faced by family-run agricultural enterprises.