Buying Land - Questions

MrsMozart

MrsMozart

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We're looking at buying some land, about twenty acres :D

It's not close, about twenty miles away, but the figures work out well :D

So, what questions should we be asking?

What things should we be considering?

Rates?

Planning permissions for...?

How do we price up getting water and electricity?

This could be very exciting, or it could be a flop :rolleyes::cool:

Is Stamp Duty payable on land?
 
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Not able to help with many of your questions but know that getting services connected costs thousands if you have a close supply for them to link into, or mega bucks if there isn't. My friend's land is right next to a electricity supply and it still cost about £6k to get connected - ouch!!!
 
Ta. I was thinking it would be in the thousands. Just got to budget it all in. Am thinking that it's something we could do over the coming years :)

Only problem might be..., if I have that many acres then how many blinking horses am I going to end up with?! :eek:

:D
 
MrsMozart said:
We're looking at buying some land, about twenty acres :D

It's not close, about twenty miles away, but the figures work out well :D

So, what questions should we be asking?
What is the planning status of the land? ie is it agricultural or equestrian or mixed use?
Who owns the boundaries/fences (if there are any)?
Is the grass permanent pasture mixture or a short/medium term lay?

What things should we be considering?

Rates?
Rates on what? if it's just pasture, there is no rates:)

Planning permissions for...?
What do you want to do with it?

How do we price up getting water and electricity?
This one is a bit of a ''how long is a piece of string?'' type of question... you are best asking national grid (or whatever they are called nowadays) and the local water company for quotes; best is to ask for a quote for complete job and a quote for the connection only if you do the works. Where I am, for example, the Anglian Water offers either a fixed price for complete connection; an estimate dependant on actual work done, or a price for connection only, where you lay all the pipes. Don't want to scare you, but I got a quote 4 years ago for connecting single phase electricity to my yard, all 100 yards from a transistor... it was £23K.

This could be very exciting, or it could be a flop :rolleyes::cool:
Click to expand...

Tell me a bit more :) or ask more specific questions ;) :D
Exciting stuff.
 
Any rights of way over the land?

Any restrictions on the title/restrictive covenants?

Any issues over access? ie, can you get straight onto the land from public highway or would you need some additional rights of access granted?

Your local suppliers should be able to provide some general information about costs for supplying power, water etc, possibly on their website.

HTH.
 
20 acres anywhere sounds good to me , we pump water from an underground spring , but , depending on where you are , you could have a bore hole put in. We are kind of in the middle of nowhere so no lecy either but a decent generator may do in the short term ,as you could rent out some of the land , even to locals for allotments etc and then buy the water and lecy connections with the income. If the land is bordered by any bridlepaths etc make sure your solicitor gets perscriptive rights to allow you to drive on them so that you have vehiecular access for horse boxes , quads , tractors etc as i don't think you have a right to drive on bridlepaths.
 
The first question I would ask is 'Where is the nearest house that is for sale?', as I really would NOT want to keep my horses 20 miles away from home, with no-one on site. Amongst other things, we have learned through bitter experience that stables are very cold uncomfortable places to spend the night when you have an ill horse. Being able to stay in the house and pop outside as and when necessary is so much better.
I do hope it all works out for you, it sounds very exciting.
 
It may be worth while to engage a solicitor at a fixed fee to carry out some searches in the first instance. This way all boundaries will be defined and any restrictions and convenants will come up, so he or she will be able to advice you if they would need to be addressed before placing an offer. We pay stamp duty on land that we buy for development purposes which is £250,000 and over. A solicitor will be able to tell you if this is any different from agricultural land, plus the VAT might have to be considered.
As previous people have said, water and electric connections are not cheap, but if you are willing to do the ground work yourself (digging trenches, laying pipes etc) - both companies will be able to give you detailed instructions on how to meet their requirements in this department - you will be saving a fair bit of money.
Good luck.
 
Missed the bit about Stamp Duty! Yes, land purchases are liable for Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). Anything up to £125,000 is exempt, anything between £125,000 - £249,999 is 1%. Some areas qualify for a discount if they are classified as disadvantaged areas.
 
Thank you re. the Stamp Duty, etc.

So, is it the price of the land, plus Stamp Duty at 1%, plus VAT on the total (at 20%)?

Good thought re. getting a solicitor to check it all first.


It was much easier last time we looked at buying somewhere. Or maybe it's faded into rose tinted memories!
 
How exciting! Although as soon as you have your own place the number of beasties you own goes up exponentially!

Planning permission: this depends on what you want to built and what kind of area your land is situated in. A good way of getting a first impression is looking around at what the neighbours have done. If the area is full of stables and barns this is a good sign. You can also speak directly to the council's planning officer, they are usually more than happy to give an indication of the kinds of things they will allow or not. Having said that, if the planning officer appears very restrictive don't necessarily be put off, a planning consultant may be able to get round the problems in no time.

Electricity: this can be a tough one and depends on conditions. The price will depend on how far away you are from the nearest exchange the electricity board can branch off from, whether they need to dig under a public road or put up poles to get to you, etc. You can do work on your own land yourself by hiring a digger, but armoured cable is always very expensive. Having said that many people cope fine with generators (I did for years).

Water: similar to above, but easier to accommodate with a more temporary solution. You can put in a large water tank which will be filled by a water lorry, or get a bowser that will tow behind your car and do it all yourself. Bore holes require planning permission and cost the earth to install.

Hope it all works out!
 
I bought some land and things I looked at were,

Access onto the highway and no shared access
Proximity of existing electric and mains water which although were 20m and 20ft respectively still cost circa £18k to have connected.
Security of property
In particular no uplift clauses as I want to develop long term

then personal things like
close to family
character ie I didn't want just square fields I wanted a bit of woodland, natural pond etc etc and no huge electric pylons on the land.

My main advice would be that buying the land is the cheap bit, setting it up to your requirements is the expensive bit. I have spent £000's and £000's and you wouldn't particularly know because a lot of it was on things that happen underground like drainage. Post n rail is hugely expensive aswell if you have a decent acreage.

For all the expense you can't beat having your own little slice of England though and no yard politics etc etc.

Good luck.
 
Thank you all kindly :D

Hm. We're having a contemplate about it all. There are drawbacks, as with most things in life, but some major plus points as well...

*wanders off, with calculator in hand, muttering scary numbers*
 
I have my own land and the use of the land next to it. This piece of land (the bit that is not mine) has a public footpath through and and I have to say I'd never buy a piece with a public right of way on it - people are such bloody pests! If they are not feeding the horses, they are letting their dogs run around the field or climbing over fences to take a short cut! Can't wait until the move back to the summer fields (my land) and I can forget about the annoying walkers!
 
20 miles is a very long and expensive commute, twice a day, every day. Especially in winter when the roads are bad - it's too far for you to walk and they need hay, ice balls picking out of feet, ice breaking on water etc when it snows whether you can get there in the car or not. The price of petrol is on the ever up and to get to work and back in a small car is £120 a month or so and that's just 13 miles away!

Regarding electricity - we have none and don't really miss it. Have big lantern things that are rechargeable and they do fine instead.
 
Appreciate the comments re. car/fuel :)

Interesting re. the lights :). I'm sure there must be lots of ways of getting power, for low uesage, without being plumbed into the mains :). Well worth some research I think :D
 
Re. the footpaths. Good point. It's hard to get land that doesn't have paths through in this neck of the woods - it must be the locals favourite pastime!

The pathways look disused, which I appreciate does not mean that they will not suddenly become popular! Given that the land was arable, I am assuming that the right of way goes round the edges of the fields, in which case, we will fence round it (post and rail and electric on top - with lots of Warning You'll Be Frazzled! signs up :D). I think the addition of the very small holed wire fencing might help keep any dogs away from the horses - I've seen it used to good effect elsewhere :)
 
You can have a look at an OS map and you will see where the footpaths go. Although it sounds logical for them tu run round the edges of arable fields, there is no such thing as logic employed in those things :D, so you might find yourself with a lot of triangular paddocks...
 
I bout 5 acres approx 15 miles from home. No water or electric. this was a few years ago. Me and DH kept our horses at livery near home [walking distance] and boxed over to the field on nice summer wekends,enjoyed hacking in a different area then boxed back home on Sunday evening. A farmer put sheep in our field to eat it down for us from time to time.A couple of years later a small cottage half a mile from our field came up for sale. We were fortunate enough to be able to sell our house and buy the cottage. Since then we have done lots of work on both the cottage and field,making 3 paddocks,planting a new hedge and some trees. We pulled down the old barn and built a new one . ok, its not next door to the house but its do-able and we couldnt afford a house with land anyway. We catch water into a large container off the barn roof and also have a water bowser to take water from home. we dont have electric ,i use a head torch if i need to go there in the dark. I hope it works out as well for you as it has for us.
 
MrsMozart said:
Appreciate the comments re. car/fuel :)

Interesting re. the lights :). I'm sure there must be lots of ways of getting power, for low uesage, without being plumbed into the mains :). Well worth some research I think :D
Click to expand...

Travel: My patch is 5 miles from home - fine any time outside rush hour, but a right bl00dy pain in heavy traffic or the dreadful snowy weather we had this & last winter. I go very early to at least avoid the traffic once a day, out at 6, home by 7am. Takes me about 10 mins. In heavy traffic it can take 30+ minutes to do the same trip!

I have battery powered LED lights in both blocks of stables and with careful management these batteries last at least the week if not a fortnight & then get charged over weekends (less if spending ages in each box or having all lights on). I have caravan leisure batteries rather than car batteries as from experience over the past 20 years has shown these to live much longer & are designed to be run completely flat.
I use the same type of batteries to run electric fencing too - but don't skimp on the fencer unit.
To run both stable blocks, and also the 2 fencer units I have 6 batteries in total. 3 or 4 on at any time & 2 charging or ready to go on.

Otherwise, I have a camping gaz burner (kept in a metal tin) for brewing cuppa's - and often take a flask of hot water with me anyway.

Clipping? I usually get a mate with battery powered clippers to come in.

Anything else? I don't have a school so don't need floodlights, tho I ride in a corner of a paddock if the ground is ok to do so, on occasions.

Couple of wind up torches are kept in the feed shed & 1 in the car, thus meaning I shouldn't ever be caught out with flat batteries.

Good luck whatever you decide to do - its fun planning!:D
 
Lol M :D Good point! I have got D onto Footpath Research duty :D

Good point re the batteries, thank you :D. We've managed with a yard with no electric or water, other than barn roof run-off before, so we have an idea of the issues involved. We weren't that bothered there as we were renting, but if we do get this one, we'll need to put all ideas and experiences to good use :D. D did manage a rather nifty watering system, which he's keen to implement again. I'm wondering if this land is for me for the horses or for him for the playing lol :D

Re. the travel :). We know this run pretty well and we're fine with it :D. It would be nice if one day we could build there, but that's definitely not a short-term thing.

Ah! Pylon! There is one in the lower section... Is this a problem?
 
re the pylon and any power lines/telegraph poles. You will get little rent its called "wayleave" its not much ,maybe about £15 a year. Check with the elec company. The company has a right of access at all times to their pylon/poles/wires. They often sub contract work out,they regulaly inspect for maintenance. a couple of years ago one very soggy Nov our elec company ruined a neighbours paddocks as they decided to remove and replace the telegraph poles,this involved vans everywhere and big machinery.
there was also the question of gates being left open. They dont tell you ,they just turn up and start work. Another neighbour stopped a man in a JCB who was digging a hole in the wrong field!.
 
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