Croft land

cazmanian_minx

Anyone got experience of taking on a crofting tenancy?

OH and I are considering buying a house in Sutherland. The house and garden are de-crofted and the offers over price is for the house and garden only. However, there's also a 2.5 acre croft plus share in the common grazings attached to the house and the seller is the tenant of this croft. He is prepared to either assign the tenancy or buy the croft from his landlord to pass on to whoever buys the house.

Does anyone have a rough idea of how much extra we'd be looking at paying to take over the tenancy? I know that traditionally purchasing a croft from the landlord is set at 15 times the annual rent. Plus, how easy is it to get approval as a new tenant from the Crofters Commission? I'd be wanting a large flock of chickens, possibly a few ducks (would need to dig out a pond) and about an acre of vegetables - is that traditional enough for them, or should I be thinking sheep?

Caz

Suzy_M

Have you checked out the Crofters Commission web site?

cazmanian_minx

Suzy_M wrote: »

Have you checked out the Crofters Commission web site?

Yes, but it wasn't terribly helpful.

Academic in the end, since the seller has found out he can't sell or pass on the tenancy for another 3.5 years, so I can stop worrying about it. We bought the house though

Caz

teapot2

Crofting laws are complicated as are the locals - my family were crofters in Sutherland and when the last one living there died and left the land to one of us it all went a bit nasty locally.

The crofting commision were not very helpful, best info came from others who were in the same boat and not local [I say this lovingly as we are related to most of the locals tho' distantly and have known them for years ]

We now have a small flock of sheep in the family [no relation]!!!

Good luck

Suzy_M

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

Yes, but it wasn't terribly helpful.

Academic in the end, since the seller has found out he can't sell or pass on the tenancy for another 3.5 years, so I can stop worrying about it. We bought the house though

Caz

Sorry about the land, congratulations on the house. It's a lovely area of Scotland so enjoy living the dream - and at least being in situ you can research the land issues more.