Inheritance Tax Act 1984 section 31

Designation and undertakings

Section 31 sets out the types of property that may be designated by the Treasury as being of national importance, and the undertakings that must be given by the owner in return for conditional exemption from inheritance tax.

• The Treasury may designate pre-eminent objects and collections, outstanding land, historic or architecturally important buildings, their surrounding amenity land, and objects historically associated with such buildings.
• Owners of designated objects and collections must undertake to keep them permanently in the UK, preserve them, and provide reasonable public access — which must not be limited to visits by prior appointment only.
• Owners of designated land, buildings, amenity land, and associated objects must undertake to maintain, repair, and preserve them, provide reasonable public access, and (for associated objects) keep them with the relevant building.
• Undertakings may require publication of their terms and related information, but documents containing confidential personal information may be wholly or partly excluded from the public access requirement.