Buying farmland for more garden: Can it be done?

Tunstallstoven

Hi all

As per a couple of my other threads, my partner and I have started looking for a house to buy in a rural location (most likely Wales). A lot of the houses we are shortlisting have ample land, but some have gardens that are a bit on the small side. In nearly of all these cases, the gardens are surrounded by fields / pasture land.

So...

1. In such cases, would it be completely unorthodox to try to find out who owns the field and ask whether they would be willing to sell an acre or two? How likely would a farmer / land owner be likely to sell an acre or two?

2. Is it even allowed?

3. What kind of price might I expect to pay? It seems land goes for around £6000 p/a on RM.

4. What legalities, additional costs would be involved?

5. What else have't I thought of?!?!

We would use the land for growing fruit and veg, fruit trees (a little orchard would be nice), and for somewhere for the dogs to run and play.

Any advice most appreciated. If there are any other forums which might help with such questions, please let me know and I'll head over to check them out.

Many thanks

Nebulous2

I've known people to buy land, mainly to keep horses. They have often ended up with land away from their home. I know someone with a current dispute from neighbours about planning for a shelter they put up for their horses.

Roughly - land people are willing to sell won't be where you want it. Land you want is more likely to be £15000+ an acre because you want it. Anything on the edge of a village is unlikely to be for sale at any price, because the farmer hopes it will be zoned for planning eventually. Don't assume because it isn't doing much that you will get universal approval for what you want to do with it. People will always object to change.

tori.k

You won't know until you approach the landowner and ask, but your pretty much guaranteed it will cost you an arm and leg compared to acre price, it be most likely cheaper to buy something that includes the land.

Davesnave

As the land becomes instantly more valuable when joined to a house, the owner would be likely to charge you considerably more for it than the general price per acre of agricultural land. That's if they wanted to sell, because in Wales much land is part of smallholdings; themselves only marginally viable and lacking economies of scale. £6k an acre? No chance!

There's also the emotional issue. Land-owners often love their land in its entirety, so they'd view the loss of some part almost like the amputation of a limb, especially if it had some important feature, like a natural water supply. For example, we have a commercial neighbour who's expressed interest in an area of our land, but we're not keen to sell because it's a piece of developing woodland we created.

However, we have another neighbour, who's not yet asked to buy an acre behind their property, as perhaps they should, because it would make good business sense. In that event, we might be tempted, because it's the one area we cannot see from our property and it contains nothing unique or interesting. I'd say maybe £25k for an acre there.

So, as tori says, you'll only know when you ask, and the answer will be dependent on a number of random factors; the price you are willing to pay being only one of them.

AdrianC

This is something that several of our neighbours have done, here in Western Herefordshire.

Seagull27 wrote: »

2. Is it even allowed?

Of course it's allowed to sell you the land.
That doesn't mean it'll be automagically the same as your garden. It will still be agricultural land, and you will be restricted as to what you can do with it. Change of use is unlikely to be granted.

We would use the land for growing fruit and veg, fruit trees (a little orchard would be nice), and for somewhere for the dogs to run and play.

You should be fine there, but even then you may be sailing close to the wind if you make it "gardeny" rather than purely functional.

Davesnave wrote: »

As the land becomes instantly more valuable when joined to a house, the owner would be likely to charge you considerably more for it than the general price per acre of agricultural land.

Even simpler than that - if you don't want to pay that price for that land, then why not buy another field somewhere else...?

Davesnave

AdrianC wrote: »

Even simpler than that - if you don't want to pay that price for that land, then why not buy another field somewhere else...?

I wouldn't disagree with that, but one can see from the OP's projected use how much nicer it would be if the land and property were contiguous.

AdrianC

Davesnave wrote: »

I wouldn't disagree with that, but one can see from the OP's projected use how much nicer it would be if the land and property were contiguous.

Yup, that's my point. You can bet the vendor can see that, too...

davidmcn

Also, if your house purchase is conditional on you buying the extra land, then you're complicating the transaction to an extent which might pee off one (or both) vendors. Farmers tend to work at their own pace rather than whatever the people in your chain want.

Forwandert

Pretty sure I recall a few years back a farmer being forced to rip up his extended garden as it was on green belt land. So maybe worth looking into this before purchasing land for a garden as it's not agricultural use so could cause problems.

tom9980

davidmcn wrote: »

Also, if your house purchase is conditional on you buying the extra land, then you're complicating the transaction to an extent which might pee off one (or both) vendors. Farmers tend to work at their own pace rather than whatever the people in your chain want.

It certainly complicated my in laws sale last week it added around 3 months.

Short story isolated mill house no owned access, they needed to sell the house due to health concerns they negotiated purchase of less than an acre of land for new access plus planning permission for £45k.

Neighbours found out and wanted 5 acres to push the track away from their property they paid £65k and in laws had to get planning amended.

The landowner owned 61 acres of land but no attached buildings and is selling the lot for £425k which given the low quality of the land is too much. He certainly made a killing getting £110k for 6 acres.

Davesnave

Forwandert wrote: »

Pretty sure I recall a few years back a farmer being forced to rip up his extended garden as it was on green belt land. So maybe worth looking into this before purchasing land for a garden as it's not agricultural use so could cause problems.

We cover this again and again.

Agriculture includes the growing of fruit and veg, so what the OP proposes is OK, although they used the word "garden" in the title, which is misleading to some extent.