agricultural tie

carthorse

carthorse

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Has anyone bought a property with an agricultural tie. We dont work in agriculture but both have bhsai (mother and daughter) and teach at pony club and would love to buy a place and run training camps. Would this come under agri tie. Would also love some milking goats. Can you get round these things
 
There are firms that advertise in magazines like Farmers Weekly offering to get ag. ties removed. The first step is to advertise the property at a realistic price, but with the tie, then if it doesn't sell apply to the Council to have the tie removed, when it becomes more valuable, which is probably what the vendors are doing right now. Mortgages are hard to get for non-farmers for houses with the ag. tie. The original definition was that you have to make your living from agriculture, or widow or widower of a farmer, but with fewer people farming there is become a surplus of such properties. There was a time when canny people would apply for a house with ag. tie. build it and then sell off the land, and then apply for the ag. tie to be removed (one like this down the road!) but now councils often say that if it is a new house it can only be sold with a minimum amount of land attached, to keep its agriucltural status.

I think the definition of agriculture has widened slightly. If you are really interested, see what your mortgage company thinks, and see if you can put forward a business plan. Wanting to keep a few goats would need a bit more reserach as to how and where you would sell the milk and what would you do with the offspring - kid kebab for instance.
 
You can get them lifted - there are companies who do that for you. Basically it involves having it advertised for sale with the tie for a minimum period and being able to show that no-one in agriculture wants it so there is no longer a need for it as an agricultural dwelling. Horses don't qualify, sadly, or we would all be buying them :)
Look in a farming paper for the companies who can get them removed.
 
My small holding originally had an agricultural tie, there were a few issues with getting a mortgage but not too difficult, one person needs to have their main income, it does not have to be the main income overall, from some form of agriculture but this can include B&B, no idea why but probably diversification comes into it, holiday lets, any farming type of income so goats would count as long as you make something, chickens or other poultry could contribute as can growing produce, forestry is also counts but sadly not equestrian pursuits, you also need to be careful about changing agricultural land to equine use.

My property has a holiday let, my main income for some time while I quietly built up the yard, I had cows on the land for grass keep to cover the requirements, then we applied for the tie to be changed through a company that deals with everything, basically there is not enough land to farm profitably so keeping horses was a more realistic option, the council accepted this and were going to change to an equestrian tie but made a mistake and removed it totally, a real bonus as the value has gone up substantially and there is no need to prove where my income is from.

You would probably find it easier to look for a property without a tie, an equestrian one would be fine as planning would not be an issue, to find somewhere suitable to run camps means plenty of land, very good facilities and deep pockets while you build up the business.
 
I think your post is explaining that you want to buy one with an ag tie, not get one lifted on a property you have now?

I had an ag-tie which I got lifted, but it is very strict about who can buy one with one on.

Usually if its a standard ag-tie, equestrianism will not qualify, you need to be getting your main income from agriculture now, or be retired from it, its a fine line as who complies.
 
Thank you. At present have a house and land is a mile away. We would like a house with land attached but round us its so expensive. We can only afford £500,000 and there is nothing with 4 acres and a house near us for that price. They are all about £750,000. This place is about £350,000 because of agri tie.
 
The agricultural tie is going to make selling somewhere with just 4 acres very difficult as it cannot function as a true agricultural holding unless it is used almost as a factory farm, it may sell to someone who is retiring or works elsewhere in farming, they may be advertising to try and show there is no interest and get the tie removed, in which case they are unlikely to accept anything other than the full price and getting a mortgage offer may be difficult if you are not able to be a cash buyer.

However I do not see how you can realistically run an equestrian business beside something agricultural on that small an acreage, you would have very limited grazing so offering livery for more than one or two would be a problem, camps sound like a good idea but without a xc course most PC/RCs would be restricted to just arena work, PCs in my area go to a big xc venue for camp as the kids all expect to be doing plenty of xc while they are there, flatwork and jumping in an arena can be done anywhere and is covered by general rallies.
Unless you can offer something unusual I don't see camps being a business, still the tie restriction anyway, a herd of breeding/ milking goats could give an income but would require most, if not all, of the 4 acres.
 
The agent should have the actual wording of the tie, they are all slightly different ask for a copy and see if what you plan would comply. You can talk to the council to make sure. Mortgage companies can be difficult as they can't just chuck it in an auction and sell it if you default - but if you can afford 500k and this is only 350 than I'd guess you'd have a very substantial deposit which might sway it for them.
 
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