Council have quoted land at £20 per sqm is this good?

eglwysman

The houses in our street including mine back onto some waste land, I contacted the council a while ago to find out about the possibility of extending our gardens to take over the land as the council currelty maintain the land once yearly but are unable to sell it on for development due to access restrictions so the land is basicallly useless expense to them. I contacted them this morning and they stated they wished to sell off the entire polt as apposed to small plots as they would still have to maintain the rest. They quoted us as a rule of thumb £20 per sqm and wondered if this is a good deal. The council stated I should contact the local residents to get their opionions if they wished to purchase some, however I know a few are rented including local authority and private and some are elderly and can't imagine they wished to extend their gardens.

The council are putting together a plan of the area and sending it to me for us to come up with a plan of how much we are after each and bill us sperately.

As this land is useless to them for any development I was hoping they would just give it to us.

rsykes2000

I would also look into legal fees, they could well outstrip the cost of the actual land itself.

Vincenzo

How much land are we talking about? My inclination would be to try and purchase the land myself with a view to later selling on at a profit to whichever of your neighbours wanted to extend their gardens (assuming there are no other development opportunities?).

Fire_Fox

The council can't just give away public property, the profits 'belong' to the council tax payer!

eglwysman

I would say the land is approx 200m x 50m, I wish I was able to purchase all the land but not in a position to do so. I am not sure if I worked it out but in order to have an area 9m x 9m it would cost around £1600 at £20 per square meter.

I am concerned if they ever sell the land off to a private developer who may then offer some people money to move out so he can knock their houses down to have suitable access in order to gain planning permission.

aliasojo

rsykes2000 wrote: »

I would also look into legal fees, they could well outstrip the cost of the actual land itself.

That is a very good point. A friend of mine wanted to buy a small strip of land at the side of her house from the council. They were happy to sell it at a nominal amount as it was of no use to them, but my friend was to pay ALL fees and costs (hers and the council's) of getting the land transferred into her name. It ended up being silly money so she never went ahead.

Vincenzo

eglwysman wrote: »

I would say the land is approx 200m x 50m, I wish I was able to purchase all the land but not in a position to do so. I am not sure if I worked it out but in order to have an area 9m x 9m it would cost around £1600 at £20 per square meter.

I am concerned if they ever sell the land off to a private developer who may then offer some people money to move out so he can knock their houses down to have suitable access in order to gain planning permission.

On the small amount of info you have given, it sounds as though this land is pretty useless other than to you and your neighbours so you should be looking to agree a price at less than the average market value.

If the Council will only consider selling the whole plot, I think your best option is to canvass the neighbours to see what sort of response you get. If there is enough interest, I would recommend you instruct a local surveyor to negotaite on your behalf.

RAS

You do not have to get everyone to agree to the purchase, just enough of you to make it viable - you then own extra land.

Also £20 is their starting price. What is garden land going for in your area?

GDB2222

eglwysman wrote: »

I would say the land is approx 200m x 50m, I wish I was able to purchase all the land but not in a position to do so. I am not sure if I worked it out but in order to have an area 9m x 9m it would cost around £1600 at £20 per square meter.

I am concerned if they ever sell the land off to a private developer who may then offer some people money to move out so he can knock their houses down to have suitable access in order to gain planning permission.

£20/sqm seems an absolute bargain to me. I suppose that it depends where you are in the country, but round here building land (with access ofc) goes for over £500/sqm.

I would snap it up before the Council work out that they can slap a CPO on a couple of house to give access and then they will be able to sell their plot for development. They have 10,000 sqm, which might be worth £5million. You can really buy it for only £200,000?

eglwysman

A bargain for waste land an extended area of 14ft by 26ft would cost e over £1600 for waste land, which is basically what it is waste land that the council do not maintain as they state their is to much rubbish which is dumped by people who don't even live around it. We want to take over the land to make it more secure for a start as the sight of loads of 6ft high fencing is not so tempting as an open area. Thier is absolutely nothing the council can do with land as it's land locked, Someone said the profits belong to the tax man well if the residents don't buy it the council can't sell it to a developer so the tax will have to be spent each year maintaining waste land as we are going to keep complaining about the constant mess etc.

squinty

The Council have only given you a 'rule of thumb' valuation which suggests that £20 per m2 is the local going rate for garden land. I suspect they will need to give you a more detailed valuation before proceeding.

The comments on getting land cheap are misleading. The Council are selling you garden land. This will probably come with a restrictive covenant that will not allow any other use. This could be lifted in the future, but there would be an additional cost incurred.