Buying more garden off the farmer - all of the street.

squares

I live backing onto a field. The farmer has told myself and all of the people in the street who also back onto it that we can buy another six feet of garden. It's not that wide 30 feet max. He says the price will be fair.
We are very keen, and wondering the best way to go about it.
Would it be cheaper/better to use one solicitor to do all the work, and then register it all individually?
I believe it can be done electronically with landreg rather than having everyones paper deeds? At themoment we have no idea what price the farmer will charge, and no idea of the legal fee.
Just wondered if anyone has experince of this? I have searched online and only found onfo about people buying large areas on their own- not a whole row.. Also i don't know if we would be expected to pay his legals?

Thanks for any advice...

Owain_Moneysaver

One thing to be aware of is that you will need planning permission for change of use from agricultural to garden, if you want to cultivate the land as a garden.

squares

I thought that. It's just got horses on at the moment. So it's grass. Most people are planning to grow veg, or some flowers. The field has no access, other than the farm so who would know? Is planning permission likely to be granted though anyway? Thanks for your help.

Our children have always played in the field, and been told no access now - they are very sad! The field they used to cut through to get to the park has also been sold, so they can't go there either. The electric horse fence has been 6 feet beyond our garden fence for years, but I believe unless we had registered an interest at that point, we can't claim it as ours - we have mowed it all that time too! Wish we had known we would need to register it! The bit we are able to buy is the distance from the gate where the electric horse fence has always run.

Owain_Moneysaver

IANAPlanningLawyer but if you keep the land as 'paddock' then I don't think you need change of use.

planning_officer

As Owain says above, the land has either an agricultural or equestrian use, so these are the only uses it can be used for. As to whether planning permission would be granted to change the use to residential (i.e. garden land), it depends on the area and the policies of your Local Plan. Mine contains a strong policy stating that permission will never be granted for such changes of use, mainly due to the fact that most of the countryside in my District is Green Belt and AONB.

Also, be aware of a recent appeal decision where an Inspector decided that someone growing vegetables on a enlarged area of land he had bought from a farmer (i.e. agricultural land) constituted a residential use. I'm not aware of any other similar appeal decisions, as horticulture is part of the definition of agriculture, but this Inspector decided that growing veg for the purposes of feeding the family residing in the neighbouring house was an unlawful extension of the residential curtilage into the agricultural field - so just don't go overboard with the veg growing, otherwise it'll look like garden land!