According to the prevailing inheritance regulations, respectively the laws of inheritance for agricultural property, heirs to farms are favored in Germany because one heir takes over the entire property whereas the retreating heirs are often compensated with relatively small sums of money. This can contribute to take over without sharing competitive farms but also farms without any chance of development, what will delay structural change of farm size which is necessary for the improvement of competitiveness of agriculture. On the other hand, the prevailing laws for the selling of agricultural land as well as the law of land lease and land lease transaction do not obstruct agri- structural change, because they are only used carefully.
