With the widest on the ground coverage of any law firm in Queensland, MacDonnells Law is based in centres with high levels of investment in primary industries: Cairns, Townsville and Brisbane.
We offer expert advice from the northern most point of the State, west to Normanton and Mount Isa and extending through central Queensland to the south east corner.
We advise clients in the rural sector and associated service industries, from cropping land and fruit plantations to large cattle or sheep stations, and have maintained a long and close association with the sugar industry at both grower and mill level. We also advise fishing and trawling operators on issues including share fishing agreements, buying and selling boats and ships, fisheries prosecutions and conducting appeals in the Queensland Fisheries Tribunal (now QCAT).
Our agribusiness lawyers have built a niche practice, advising primary producers in relation to all aspects of property, commercial and private legal matters and have years of experience in:
- sales, acquisitions, due diligence investigations - land, plant, equipment and livestock
- property transactions involving freehold, leasehold and other tenures under the Land Act
- State lease matters - condition of leases, renewal of leases, negotiating land management agreements, conversion of leasehold tenures
- compensation for statutory resumptions (road, rail, electricity, water etc) and mining and gas tenements
- property management matters - water, vegetation and compliance with other legislative requirements
- advice on and preparation of all types of trusts and family re-arrangements and corporate structuring
- estate and business succession planning
- implications of taxation, stamp duty, GST and capital gains tax
- cultivation and partnership agreements
- share farming arrangements
- negotiation of family business issues
- pre-marital financial agreements
- company securities / liens on shares
- joint venture agreements
- estate administration.
