Hobby sellers - plant passports?

LM2020

I've just read about the December 2019 update regarding plant passports and I'm not sure whether it applies. Does this mean hobby sellers won't be able to sell plants anymore on ebay (distance selling)? My understanding of the update is that all plants will need to be sent with a passport and to provide this the seller has to have a yearly inspection costing at least £123. It seems to apply to everyone (private and business). Is this correct?

soolin

LM2020 said:

I've just read about the December 2019 update regarding plant passports and I'm not sure whether it applies. Does this mean hobby sellers won't be able to sell plants anymore on ebay (distance selling)? My understanding of the update is that all plants will need to be sent with a passport and to provide this the seller has to have a yearly inspection costing at least £123. It seems to apply to everyone (private and business). Is this correct?

You may need to wait for someone else who understands the ramifications of plant selling to see this thread for a fuller response.

However there is no such thing as a hobby seller, only business or private. If you raise plants to sell on then you are a business and would need to comply with all business requirements including a return policy, declaration to HMRC etc. Plants though are always a difficult area as there is always the argument that if you raise your plants from seed then you will more than likely have an excess , so this could be seen as selling your own unwanted items. I suspect though this is more likely to come down to whether you are selling a dozen unwanted tomato plants, or whether you sell dozens of variations including cuttings propagated directly for selling. 

LM2020

Thank you for your response. I am a sole trader and include my ebay sales in a separate self assessment tax return. However, my sales are very small so I view it as more of a hobby business although I do declare it for tax. I sell plants grown on my windowsill or mini greenhouse from my own collection and I don't know if I could afford the inspection fee especially as it says £123 is the minimum. I think the plant passport used to be required for certain types of plant but now applies to all.

I'm also concerned as there are lots of private sellers on ebay selling unwanted plants from their own collection. Its a way to find rare plants you couldn't buy locally - I'm not sure how the new regulations affect this.

soolin

LM2020 said:

Thank you for your response. I am a sole trader and include my ebay sales in a separate self assessment tax return. However, my sales are very small so I view it as more of a hobby business although I do declare it for tax. I sell plants grown on my windowsill or mini greenhouse from my own collection and I don't know if I could afford the inspection fee especially as it says £123 is the minimum. I think the plant passport used to be required for certain types of plant but now applies to all.

I'm also concerned as there are lots of private sellers on ebay selling unwanted plants from their own collection. Its a way to find rare plants you couldn't buy locally - I'm not sure how the new regulations affect this.

As a business (and as above there is no actual hobby seller category) you would have to comply with whatever business regulations are in force. Plants are completely out of my field of experience, are there any plant seller forums or such like where you may get people with a better understanding of the requirements? I had a quick read and did get a bit confused as to whether from 2021 for example this would even apply to a UK seller as by that time, on current timescales, we will be outside the EU trading platform. Is it possible that you would only need to worry if you send outside the UK, which is easy to control on eBay?

eBay is also a different consideration , they may not even understand the requirements themselves so might not enforce anything anyway. As for other sellers as I mentioned in my first post plants are an iffy category to define what is a business and what is private , if These passports are required for UK sellers then it might even be that eBay will enforce the requirement for all sellers rather than try and police who is a business and who is not. As above though this is completely out of my field of knowledge. 

soolin

At the moment the eBay policy is quite sparse
https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/plants-seeds-policy?id=4287&st=3&pos=1&query=Plants%20and%20seeds%20policy&intent=Plants&context=9014_BUYER&lucenceai=lucenceai

LM2020

soolin said:

LM2020 said:

Thank you for your response. I am a sole trader and include my ebay sales in a separate self assessment tax return. However, my sales are very small so I view it as more of a hobby business although I do declare it for tax. I sell plants grown on my windowsill or mini greenhouse from my own collection and I don't know if I could afford the inspection fee especially as it says £123 is the minimum. I think the plant passport used to be required for certain types of plant but now applies to all.

I'm also concerned as there are lots of private sellers on ebay selling unwanted plants from their own collection. Its a way to find rare plants you couldn't buy locally - I'm not sure how the new regulations affect this.

As a business (and as above there is no actual hobby seller category) you would have to comply with whatever business regulations are in force. Plants are completely out of my field of experience, are there any plant seller forums or such like where you may get people with a better understanding of the requirements? I had a quick read and did get a bit confused as to whether from 2021 for example this would even apply to a UK seller as by that time, on current timescales, we will be outside the EU trading platform. Is it possible that you would only need to worry if you send outside the UK, which is easy to control on eBay?

eBay is also a different consideration , they may not even understand the requirements themselves so might not enforce anything anyway. As for other sellers as I mentioned in my first post plants are an iffy category to define what is a business and what is private , if These passports are required for UK sellers then it might even be that eBay will enforce the requirement for all sellers rather than try and police who is a business and who is not. As above though this is completely out of my field of knowledge. 

soolin said:

At the moment the eBay policy is quite sparse

Thank you. I wasn't sure which forum to use - most other discussions I found were from small nurseries but not with sales as low as mine. Depending on the time of year and how many spare plants I have I might make about £50 a month. I would have to raise my prices quite a bit to afford an inspection but then I would probably struggle to sell anything as I wouldn't be able to compete with private sellers not paying fees. My biggest concern is that the fee they mention is a minimum - I don't know how high the cost could be until its done. Thank you for having a look at it. I originally thought the passports only applied when a plant went to a different country and I don't import/export because of this. But it looks like the update now means it applies to any plant sold within UK including direct to customer. I'm also not sure how Brexit affects this as it is an EU law. It used to be that you needed a passport for certain species of plants (ones that were susceptible to certain diseases) and I was always careful not to sell any of these. I'm going to ring APHA when they open as I'm really not sure what to do and if I can afford to sell.

claire07

I'm in a similar position to you.  I volunteer at a local gardens and donated most of my surplus specialist plants to them (they are now obviously closed) and any remaining ones I put on ebay just to recoup some of my costs.  However at the end of last year I noticed all the Plant Passport regulations coming in and they seemed to say hobby sellers could only sell face to face at a show (obviously not possible now) and if they sold plants online they needed a Plant Passport with all the costs involved which only seemed worth it for professional sellers.

So, although there seem to be amateur growers still selling on ebay I stopped and with the virus onset and problems with posting items I have finished until we are through this and the situation is more clear.

RFW

For a definitive answer you should try asking Trading Standards via your local council. Though you might get the correct answer on here it's not something you can be certain of.

LM2020

claire07 said:

I'm in a similar position to you.  I volunteer at a local gardens and donated most of my surplus specialist plants to them (they are now obviously closed) and any remaining ones I put on ebay just to recoup some of my costs.  However at the end of last year I noticed all the Plant Passport regulations coming in and they seemed to say hobby sellers could only sell face to face at a show (obviously not possible now) and if they sold plants online they needed a Plant Passport with all the costs involved which only seemed worth it for professional sellers.

So, although there seem to be amateur growers still selling on ebay I stopped and with the virus onset and problems with posting items I have finished until we are through this and the situation is more clear.

Thank you for your response. I read about the exception of face to face sales but unfortunately even before the pandemic I wasn't be able to do it - I probably wouldn't have enough plants to sell to pay for petrol or a stand at a fair/show. The plants I have are all succulents most are houseplants or at least need to be brought in for winter. As they're more specialist plants I probably wouldn't sell much in the local area and depend on people around the country looking for that specific species. If they say I need to register when I check tomorrow I'll probably try it for a year, see how much the inspection costs and see whether I can then grow enough to cover the cost. When I looked at the forms they seemed quite tricky to complete as an individual growing plants at home - a lot of the questions seem to be for companies/nurseries and focused on specific plants species. Thank you for your help.

RFW said:

For a definitive answer you should try asking Trading Standards via your local council. Though you might get the correct answer on here it's not something you can be certain of.

Thank you. I will be trying to get in conact with the office when they open tomorrow.

November2

Have never heard of this before.  I recently sold half a dozen plants on Ebay, offshoots of a plant I have.  I decided to put them on my Business account as I didn't want to cause problems for my Private for selling more than one of an item.  Nothing flagged up on Ebay warning me I had to have a passport.   How are people who are just selling 2 or 3 plants a year supposed to know about this passport?    To comply with the law shouldn't Ebay be banning all plant sales Private and Business with postage listed if they have no passport?   What about Facebook, Gumtree, people can list collect but then post anyway.  How will the Government Dept police it?  Will there be fines for people selling 'a' plant, will an inspector turn up to find 6 plants in a tray on someone's windowsill, how can they stop people posting a plant to a relative?    Surely the passport is for people 'dealing' in plants on a regular basis who sell a minimum number per week.    

theoretica

November2 said:

Have never heard of this before.  I recently sold half a dozen plants on Ebay, offshoots of a plant I have.  I decided to put them on my Business account as I didn't want to cause problems for my Private for selling more than one of an item.  Nothing flagged up on Ebay warning me I had to have a passport.   How are people who are just selling 2 or 3 plants a year supposed to know about this passport?    To comply with the law shouldn't Ebay be banning all plant sales Private and Business with postage listed if they have no passport?   What about Facebook, Gumtree, people can list collect but then post anyway.  How will the Government Dept police it?  Will there be fines for people selling 'a' plant, will an inspector turn up to find 6 plants in a tray on someone's windowsill, how can they stop people posting a plant to a relative?    Surely the passport is for people 'dealing' in plants on a regular basis who sell a minimum number per week.    

'It will be hard to police' is not how it is decided if laws apply.  That's a bit like arguing that the speed limit wasn't really 30 mph because there wasn't a speed camera.  You can of course think the speed limit (or this new legislation) is stupid, but that doesn't change what it is.