Field/Land. Who owns it? How much is it worth? How do I buy it?

ixwood

There's a field down the road from me, that I'm very interested in buying. It's mostly grass/brush with a gate to the road, but is all on a fairly steep slope and I've never seen it used for anything (in 5 years+).

Am I right in thinking a steeply sloped field isn't much use to a farmer? That's my hope. It'll never be allowed to be built on either, so I hope to be able to get it for a reasonable price.

The only thing I think it could be used for is hay/straw/grazing. Would the slope mean no machinery possible, so no use for hay/straw?

How can I find out the owner (land registry only seems to do houses (if that's the case, should be called the house registry!)), and how much (per acre) do you think it'd be worth?

Thanks.

lostinrates

Where abouts is it. Small areas of grassland are still very expnsive (have seen some in popular horsey areas for 40k plus per acre)

Steeply sloping land, difficult to say, how steep? No good for hay if a tractor can't work it. Straw is a 'by product' of grain...so not relevant here. Grazing, again, depends. Steep land is fin for shep, goats, smaller ponies. My vet-neighbour has some calves for his freezer on a slope I find terrifying.:)

ixwood

Thanks. Northants. Pretty good location on a road, a minutes walk out of a village. It's a fairly horsey area i guess, but it hasn't been used for anything in the 5 or 6 years I've been using it (dog walking).

Re steepness. you know you're walking up it for sure. And there's a couple of hollows, which I imagine would be hard/awkward to negotiate.

It does get mowed occasionally somehow though (never seen it happen, but it's been grassy scrub for years), so that's not a good sign. It's only a relatively small field.

Does it sound like it's used for hay then (since it's mowed)? Do you think it's likely to be available if I can track down the owner? What's the going rate for that sort of land?

bo_drinker

Farm land around here is around 3k an acre I think. If it looks as if it could be built on one day maybe more.

lostinrates

Is the grass taken away? Do bales appear in the field a couple of days after cutting? Or bales wrapped in plastic?

Topping is not a good sign for low cost, whether taking hay/halage or not some one is maintaining th land.

How many acrs do you think it is? Small field suitable for pony/horse grazing would comand a decent price. Looking on Primeloaction a ten acre plot in northhants is available for what would work out as INTR of 10k per acre, but that really not a good guide, I don't know what sort of land it is, or your area, at all. You need to speak to the owner really.

ixwood

3k sounds cheap/good to me. People try and flog useless "investment" land for twice that.

This definitely isn't prime farm land and I can't see it ever being built on, that's why I'm hopeful of being able to get it at a reasonable price.

Although having said that, I've no idea what an acre looks like in reality, but my uneducated guess is that the field is 2-3 acres and I think I'd be willing to pay £6-8k for it.

Any ideas how to track the owner down?

ixwood

Yes, I think it must be taken away. I'm never noticed cut grass around anyway. And no bales ever appear.

My wild guess is 3 acres. I guess I was hoping that if it was good for anything else, it'd be used. I've never seen anyone do anything with it.

Any ideas how to track down the owners? There's a farm further down the road with some fields with horses on towards the one in question, which is probably a good place to start I guess. Although I sense a get off my land shotgun moment.

lostinrates

If they are taking the grass away my guess is it is used for silage and its being taken to a silage clamp. This is all very guess-y though.

bo_drinker

Ask the locals. I find that folk in the country are very nosey. You'll soon track them down.

PasturesNew

Roughly speaking an acre is about 210 feet square (if you work in old money).

An acre of land will have many different prices. Agricultural land was about £2k/acre for years, I've heard of it being at £10k/acre lately as the price of agricultural land has escalated.

A piece of land is worth something to the owner, something to the potential buyer - and a figure based on what the owner thinks the potential buyer might gain from it, might profit to it - and any future the current owner believes the land might have.

Some people will never sell plots of land. They just pass them through the generations for centuries. Some might be held as some future potential for access to a more lucrative plot.

If it's on a slope, it could be fine for grazing sheep or goats. Depending on orientation it might be seen as ideal for grape growing, or crops that need protection if it's the right orientation.

All land has a "type". Agricultural is for growing things, pasture is for grazing (?) and building land is for building things. To do something different on the land would need Planning Permission. e.g. if your house is next to a cabbage field or pasture you can't buy a piece of that and extend your garden, because that would be a change of use.

You can build on a slope, it's just a lot more expensive than building on a flat piece of land.

So you have to really work out what you plan to do with the land.

For the record, there was a piece of land the other day on Homes Under the Hammer, it was pasture land. A couple bought it and started to grow crops on it and used it for a 4x4 driving ground for their kids, said they'd get some bangers on there in the future for driving too. They also planned to possibly have a farm shop - and another plot of land to invite local schoolkids over to show them how things grow ... and planning permission wasn't mentioned once! It wasn't mentioned by the presenter, the people, nor the agents who valued it before and after. Which I found odd.

PasturesNew

bo_drinker wrote: »

Ask the locals. I find that folk in the country are very nosey.

How else would we find things out?