Buying woodlands....

C_Mababejive

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/index.php

I feel all is not as clear as it seems...why buy a woodland?

leveller2911

I find it quite shocking that Jo Public can be so naive to think owning woodland is 1: investment and 2: easy. In my area many small plots of woodland have been sold by that company and whilst they are not breaking any laws its wrong to sell woodland in such small plots. English woolands including ancient woodland have evolved over centuries through hard work by the woodsmen and the woodland cycle.Woods need to be thinned out every few years depending on species and maintained yearly . The vast majority of people who buy them up loose interest pretty quickly when they find out how hard the work is. Another problem is that many of the plots are too small to be financially viable on their own, as part of a larger wood/forest they are viable..........

Many ,many problems are caused by these companies selling small areas of woodland to naive nature seeking numpties and prospectors....

Loughton_Monkey

C_Mababejive wrote: »

...why buy a woodland?

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK.
I sleep all night and I work all day........"

C_Mababejive

leveller2911 wrote: »

I find it quite shocking that Jo Public can be so naive to think owning woodland is 1: investment and 2: easy. In my area many small plots of woodland have been sold by that company and whilst they are not breaking any laws its wrong to sell woodland in such small plots. English woolands including ancient woodland have evolved over centuries through hard work by the woodsmen and the woodland cycle.Woods need to be thinned out every few years depending on species and maintained yearly . The vast majority of people who buy them up loose interest pretty quickly when they find out how hard the work is. Another problem is that many of the plots are too small to be financially viable on their own, as part of a larger wood/forest they are viable..........

Many ,many problems are caused by these companies selling small areas of woodland to naive nature seeking numpties and prospectors....

Yes indeed..those are the thoughts i had in mind.

Another thought is..well woodland.co.uk must actually own all this land in order to (subdivide it and) sell it.

If so,how did they come to own it?

leveller2911

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Yes indeed..those are the thoughts i had in mind.

Another thought is..well woodland.co.uk must actually own all this land in order to (subdivide it and) sell it.

If so,how did they come to own it?

I can't speak about other areas but locally they seem to buy larger woods and like you say subdivide. I also wonder if they also look for woodland that doesn't appear to be owned by anyone and then claim it after fencing it off for a period of time.There are at least 2 areas of woodland around my village that no one seems to own.People have tried the land registry and local council but it seems the ownership seems to have been lost over the years.

Cautious_Investor_3

Hi

There are some good investment based reasons to purchase woodland, the link below takes you through to an interview with a 'woodland fund manager', which makes interesting reading:

http://www.!!!!!!.uk/technical-area/investment-sense-guides/does-money-grow-on-trees-take-a-look-at-forestry-a-truly-green-investment/

I hope you find this interesting.

The Cautious Investor

naseby_2

This site appears legit, but i have heard of other companies that buy up bits of the countryside and then sell it on (usually to foreigners) without explaining concepts like green-belt or British planning law.

Loughton_Monkey

Cautious_Investor wrote: »

There are some good investment based reasons to purchase woodland, the link below takes you through to an interview with a 'woodland fund manager', which makes interesting reading:

Fully understood.

But I always tend to whiff just a hint of a smelly fish with these things. Put another way:

If I inherited a decent woodland, would I hold on to it? [Maybe, but I would want to work out cost of management, and would worry about when/where my profits was.]

Would I buy shares in a company buying up and managing woodlands? [Very probably. The directors' own livelihood is involved, and they would give it a good bash to make it profitable.]

Would I buy a 'Forest Fund' where the owners have locked in their own profits, parcelled up the 'risk' and benevolently offered all the future profits to others, while taking a safe, steady % out of the deal? [Probably not. Once all the fund has been parcelled out, I can't see any incentive for anyone to 'manage' the wood optimally.]