Value of Garden

DigForVictory

An elderly gent with a lot of land with no inclination to change matters?
I'd definitely start with the unobtrusive researches online, but before I went much further I would certainly lay on tea & cake.

One friendly conversation will clarify LOADS, and accurate intel is priceless.

Hoploz

A friend of mine recently extended her garden into woodland owned by local person who owns most of the village!

It was complete Nomansland between her house and his farm. Therefore of no financial value to anybody else to buy and of no consequence for him to lose by selling. Her neighbours a few doors down had already done the same some years earlier.

He set his price, they had to pay it if they wanted it. Approx 10m wide x 15m long cost them over £25,000. The next door neighbour did it at the same time so the two homeowners paid all the legal fees between them and Mr Landowner pocketed over £50k for nothing.

It has however added more than 25k to the value of their house, so they considered it worth it. They are getting the enjoyment of doubling their garden and it has made their house more saleable (house extension had made garden far too small in comparison) and therefore increased its value. Hard to put a sum on it but house value is £600-700k for reference.

The solicitor dealing with it said to my friend that his price was 10 x the value of the land in her experience of other transactions, but of course the value is whatever someone is willing to pay.

Davesnave

ThinkingOutLoud wrote: »

OK, but he is not trying to build on it or change its use, right?

Maybe there is no need / plan to change the use? So if the OP erects all his sheds etc on his existing garden (per existing permissions) and plants a apple trees to make it into an orchard garden / does nothing to damage the flow of the countryside...

But he does need to clarify the facts formally as posted by various way above. Plus, it does sound like the current owner does nothing to tend the land.

Firstly, all land has a designation of some sort, so if this is agricultural land, it would be a change of use. It's irrelevant what the current owner does with the land, although if it's left to nature it's likely that the powers that be aren't keeping a close eye on it, as they would if rural payments were being made.

I've deliberately avoided contact with any government body for similar reasons. On my smallholding the boundaries between garden and fields were blurred in the 10 years prior to my ownership, and in the seven years since, I've made them even more ambiguous!

You're on the right lines by suggesting that a work-around is to treat any garden acquired unofficially from farmland as orcharding. An allotment would also be possible.

I have friends in the village here who doubled the size of their gardens via the official route. It certainly improved their properties' saleability without seriously detracting from the amenity value of the surrounding area. However, my guess is that the local council probably took its cue from the parish one, and knowing who was involved......say no more!

waveneygnome

I've recently done this too.

My advice would be to take it slowly, start with verbal communication/expression of interest, and follow it up with a nice letter. If you don't hear back, leave it a few months. Certainly don't push it - the old farmers can be suspicious and think that they are 'giving' something of value away.

Getting valuers in is useful to a certain extent - but they can only give guides. I had 2 valuers; one said 5k, and the other said 40k.........the farmer got one in and said 80k. All were RICS. At the end of the day, it's what it's worth to you that counts........some people buy new cars that depreciate as soon as you drive them off the forecourt........but land......well, they've stopped making it round my way.

Offer to pay farmers legal fees (expect around £1k......for such a small parcel/value, you might be able to have one solicitor acting for both parties)............I found a good local solicitor who did this and only charged £500.

Now I would never condone this, but I've heard some farmers are partial to cash. You may be able to structure a deal with this in mind.

It took me 7 yrs in total from starting negotiations to conclusion. "I'll never sell that land.....I'm thinking about the land.......what you gonna offer........your valuer is an idiot..........yes my valuer is RICS qualified........yes he got the right address........it will all go in taxes anyway........I'm glad you bought that land, I always had you in mind for it"

tom9980

Basically Waverneygnome and hoploz experience echoes mine. Currently negotiating to buy a 5 metre wide strip that is about 500 metres long to build an access road, the land is worth 5k the owner wants 40k+ And the road will cost 25-30k however it will increase the value of the property by at least 100k.

If the op buys this land for less than 10k it will likely be a bargain.

Davesnave

My experience of selling land was similar in taking a long time, mainly because the buyers (4 involved) were fixated on the cost of garden land, rather than the value it would add to their homes. They also felt that as I would not be able to sell the land to anyone else for the same sort of money, they had me in a corner.

It took around 4 years to convince them that it I was prepared to hold on indefinitely, rather than sell at a price I regarded as unfairly low. It cost me nothing to wait.

A valuation, purely as a garden and divorced from context, commissioned by them, was a total waste of money, so be warned that similar tactics will probably cut no ice with the farmer.

GDB2222

waveneygnome wrote: »

It took me 7 yrs in total from starting negotiations to conclusion. "I'll never sell that land.....I'm thinking about the land.......what you gonna offer........your valuer is an idiot..........yes my valuer is RICS qualified........yes he got the right address........it will all go in taxes anyway........I'm glad you bought that land, I always had you in mind for it"

That sounds about right to me. The idea that you'll invite your neighbour round for tea and cake, having more or less ignored him previously, and he'll immediately become putty in your hands....