Buying house with land question!

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southerncomfort

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A house has come up for sale within budget and commuting distance (yep...I'm wondering what the catch is too!).

It has 6 six acres with it however, as far as I'm aware it is currently used as 'garden' even though it is just a field.

What, if any, permissions would need to be obtained before grazing horses on the land?

Thanks in advance. :)
 
You can check to see if it is registered as farmland - if it is you will need to apply for change of use to graze horses.

Also check that there are no footpaths running through it - walkers are the bane of my life :(
 
If it is grazing land, get a few sheep to run with the horses, you will need a holding number, but if it is already grazing land, it will probably have one. They are also excellent for keeping the grass in good condition. Agree with the comment about footpaths, we ensured there were none across our land when we bought the place, but people walking on the land next to ours do seem to think that it is fine to allow their dogs into our fields and then turn the electric fence (which is up to protect our dry stone walls from leaning horses) into a cats cradle to get their dog back out of the field!
Good luck with the purchase and be prepared to never have a day off from land management for the rest of your natural :D
 
Best thing you will ever do (although hard work and NO cheaper than livery and no days off!)
From a planning perspective the rules are applied very differently from council to council but you can have a pre planning chat to whoever will ultimately decide and see what their views are.
Likely some kind of form and a fee and you'll be there
If there is stabling/ barns outbuildings already you're probably totally safe as even non recreational (equestrian) land can be used to graze horses as long as you don't feed them anything extra (inc hay) in the field - a stretch unless you have somewhere to bring then in the worst of the weather!

If there are stables do get your lawyer to carefully check the business rates/ domestic curtilage situation for those - or it could work out very expensive - especially since the governments ruling this month that councils can keep all their business rates - so I expect councils to be going all out on the business rates from now!
 
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Polos Mum said:
If there is stabling/ barns outbuildings already you're probably totally safe as even non recreational (equestrian) land can be used to graze horses as long as you don't feed them anything extra (inc hay) in the field - a stretch unless you have somewhere to bring then in the worst of the weather!
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They've changed the rules slightly - you can feed 'occasional feeds' to fit with welfare laws. They realised how stupid it was when farmers are allowed to supplement the feed of cattle and sheep but not horse owners. As long as the field is not subdivided they would view is as horses grazing the land for agricultural purposes. Not so great if you have a good doer though and makes it very difficult to manage the grazing in summer to allow enough to be left in winter.
 
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Do you need a grazing licence? Not sure about it all but we recently moved to a house and changed some land from arable to grazing and have had to pay for a license. It's rented so not sure if that makes a difference
Sounds lovely op. It's so amazing seeing your horses out of the window!
 
Go on to the BHS website and look at the bridleway maps for your area, also consider how busy the road outside your property is if you will have to ride down it to get to bridleways/byways :)
 
All fab advice, thank you! The only outside building I can see on the plans is a set of kennels. No other buildings on the land so I suspect they use the land for exercising the dogs.

It's on a very quiet country road surrounded by farm land (will check to see if their are any huge developments planned nearby!). Riding would be on country lanes and their are also a couple of bridleways that link up with a larger network of bridleways.

I didn't know about the feeding rules so that is interesting and something to bear in mind. I'd have to get some sort of mobile shelter eventually I think.

Thanks again for all the useful advice, forewarned is forearmed! :)
 
southerncomfort said:
I'd have to get some sort of mobile shelter eventually I think.
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If it's agricultural land you won't be able to. There was a post on here a couple of years ago about a woman who had bought agricultural land and was grazing the horses - she got notice to move them or face a huge fine. She ended up with land that was worthless to her and having to pay for the ponies elsewhere.
 
EQUIDAE said:
If it's agricultural land you won't be able to. There was a post on here a couple of years ago about a woman who had bought agricultural land and was grazing the horses - she got notice to move them or face a huge fine. She ended up with land that was worthless to her and having to pay for the ponies elsewhere.
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It depends very much on your council and on what the land around you is used for, as wel as what has been done previously on 'your' land.
 
Our council very happily allow us to graze horses and feed them with no change of use etc. They even happily allowed us to build a large block stable/shelter/barn. Sadly not a house though, just people of certain type over the hedge
 
We bought a house which had an agricultural covenant on it but this had been removed about 10 years ago. The 7 acres however was deemed agricultural which by the letter of the law we couldn't ride / put jumps on it even though there was a lovely block of new stables which had been granted pp. we met with the planning officer prior to buying the property and she said she couldn't see any problem with changing the use of the land to equestrian use meaning we could ride on it. We actually ended up applying for pp for an arena and was granted that and change of use to equestrian with out any problem at all. I think most councils are happy with change of use to equestrian as long as not business related ( we for example can not run a livery yard as per the terms of our pp) - most however we object to agriculture or equestrian being changed to domestic meaning that there is more chance of building on it down the line that way. That's was our experience anyway!
 
If it is agricultural land then get a surveyor to get you change of use from agricultural to equestrian use together with whatever stables, feed sheds, hay barns and arenas that you require.
Take in to account that you may need to put drainage in, field and stable water troughs and also electricity to the stables.
Good luck!
 
Horses can be considered as "amenity" and not farming, so the council could argue that change of use from agriculture to amenity requires planning permission.

I believe you can argue that it is farming if most of the feed is produced on site and fed back to the animals. If the majority of the feed is bought in, it is more likely to be 'amenity".

Here in Scoland it has been argued that Highland ponies, Clydesdales, and Shetlands are agricultural as historically they were used to work the land.

If you keep non-native breeds, have the place littered with coloured jumps, give riding lessons, and buy in your feed, I think it would definitely be classed as amenity!
 
I think it does depend on the council though. We rented a field from a farmer and was definitely agricultural land and had always been used for cattle, but we had the horses on it, fed them regularly in the winter and even rode/ lunged in the field, with no hint of a problem.
 
Even if your deeds say other people own the boundaries, budget for maintaining it all yourself to a level that will keep other people's stock off it. I learnt that one to my cost (of several hundred quid and a lot of hard work, to stop other people's sheep coming into my field!). It doesn't matter if your neighbours are responsible for the fences, if they don't and won't mend them, then you will have no option.
 
If I remember correctly from previous posts on here the rules regarding shelters/stables is different if they fall in the boundaries of the garden, I think the word is curtilage (?) so its worth establishing what is classed as part of the garden officially
 
Thanks again everyone. Sounds like I need to find out exactly what the land is classed as and then have a chat with the local planning office.

I had no idea about all the various rules and regulations so this has been really informative.

Thank you!
 
Good luck, the council are really the only ones who know how strictly they enforce their own rules! If it's garden currently you have a good argument it's already amenity so horses shouldn't make any different (there is no such official equestrian classification - its agricultural (for famers) or amenity (for recreational use)

I applied for planning for an American barn, did some rough drawings myself and the planning basically came back saying build what you want, any size any materials - we're not bothered. My friend only 6 miles away but different council could only build from wood, no barn shape, limits on the overhang of the stables, limits on how many stables (you only own 3 acres so only have 3 stables) even though she rented much more etc etc. it was a nightmare and too ages. There is no logic !
 
Thanks all.

So before we contacted estate agents we decided to do a quick 'drive by'. Good job we did as we discovered the catch - the main rail line in to London just a few metres from the house!!! LOL!

Saw another one on Rightmove which ticked all the boxes...scrolled down to the small print to discover that the land is outside the property boundary so presumably, you'd need cash to fund that part of the purchase!

Another one I looked at, it turned out that their were three separate title deeds - one for the house, one for the stable yard and one for the land.

So the search goes on...on the plus side I have learned lots about land use and also about reading the small print! :)
 
Oh dear - still you get used to the sound of the railway line, although I suppose it depends on how busy it is. A barn we thought would never get planning permission is now a house, even though it is right next to the railway, but although it is a busy line, it isn't high speed.
 
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