Chichester

Median gross weekly pay for full-time employees living in Chichester district was £696.20 in 2025, against £815.20 across the South East and £766.60 across Great Britain. On 2024 BRES figures, manufacturing accounts for 9.8% of employee jobs against 5.8% regionally, accommodation and food services 9.8% against 7.8%, and real estate activities 3.7% against 1.8%.

The district's adopted local plan identifies horticulture, health, education, retail and public administration among its employment sectors, with opportunities in engineering and manufacturing, construction, and business and financial services. The council separately promotes horticulture, viticulture and the visitor economy as current strengths.

Two features of that mix are worth noting. Horticultural and farm businesses combine land, buildings, plant and trading activity, often across owned and tenanted parcels. And the real estate share counts employee jobs in that industry in the district; it does not measure how many households own let or second property. If you do own property beyond your home, it brings its own records, tax position and, on a death, its own administrative work.

The ONS provisional average house price for Chichester district in June 2026 was £430,000, above the South East average of £380,000 on the same series. Detached homes averaged £683,000 and flats £217,000. The district's adopted plan notes that larger and more expensive detached homes are particularly found outside the city itself.

Set that against resident earnings of £696.20 a week — below the regional figure — and the picture is clear: high property values here are not a proxy for high disposable income. A retired couple in an outright-owned house worth well above the district average can have a modest income and very little in the way of accessible savings.

The useful questions do not follow from a price. How is the property held between a couple? What would a surviving spouse need, and from where? Could the estate meet costs, and any tax, before a property could be sold? And if a house is to stay in the family, how are other children to be provided for? Those are ownership and family questions, and a specialist answers them from your circumstances rather than from an average.

HMRC's guidance explains that agricultural relief, where it applies, is given against the agricultural value of land — broadly its value for farming — rather than against what a country house with land would fetch on the open market, and that its conditions turn on how land is owned, who occupies it, what it is used for and for how long.

In a district with substantial horticulture and viticulture, the detail matters. Land may be farmed by someone else under a tenancy or licence; a business may have wound down; parcels may have been bought at different times on different titles; and use may change after a death. Ask a specialist how HMRC's conditions apply to each of those, rather than assuming any of them settles the position.

The practical step is a written schedule: every parcel, its title, who occupies it, under what agreement, what it is used for and since when. A specialist can then assess it against HMRC's current conditions. Cromwell Associates makes the introduction; we do not assess reliefs or give tax advice.

Have ready: the properties and how each is held; any let property with its tenancies; any land with its titles and agreements; business interests and their governing documents; pension and life policy nominations; and the names of people you have actually asked to act as executor and attorney.

Lasting powers of attorney deal with decisions while someone is alive, and are separate from a will. Property and financial affairs, and health and welfare, are two documents, and each must be made while you have the capacity to make that particular LPA. Without an appropriate arrangement in place, court involvement may be needed, depending on the decision and the circumstances.

We coordinate the enquiry and introduce an appropriate specialist, and may receive a referral payment where an introduction proceeds. The specialist sets out their own scope, fees and terms with you directly.