How many of you holding onto agricultural land hoping to sell commercially?

Achinghips

Achinghips

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Farmer has 2 acres backing onto my house and for 13 years has been holding onto it and won't sell it to me or lease it, hoping that the restricted green belt will be lifted, so he can make richer pickings when it may be able to be sold commercially for building plots. Anyone else got any experience of this?
 
no experience but he must be an idiot. Surely he would have been better getting rent for it with a pullout clause for 13 years rather than it been stood empty!
 
Land in Surrey (SE England) is ridiculously expensive. The majority of fields are bought by investment companies then split up into tracts of land, usually in plots of around a quarter of an acre and sold separately to investors. Then they sit there empty for years and years and years and years and years, well you get the picture! All the time this pushes the price of land higher and higher!
 
He's not done anything with it, it used to be green houses, so land is all scrub with brambles and glass, no fencing. I guess it'll cost him a bit to turn it into good grazing? VERY frustrating - It's worth 17k, but I'd pay up to 50k for it as it would put that value on my house. He doesn't want to know.
 
yep - alot of farmers round us are the same. I rented a field off a farmer for approx 4 years. he said he would sell in a few years but after 4 years of waiting we looked elsewhere. We actually bought off a builder who realised that the land he owns will never get the green belt restriction lifted.
Your farmer cousl still demand a high price for the land if someone equestrian wishes to buy it - someone I know bought roughly 3 acres and paid £47k for it! another person I know bout less than 1 acre for £35k - yes £35000 - ridiculous as he will never get planning for a house on it
 
Guy who owns the field behind us held on to it for 15 years. One of those "get of my land" type people. Paid off for him... they are putting planning permission through for 22 houses on an acre and a half... Not enough houses in Wales you see. It wasn't only greenbelt, it was outside the village boundary too.
 
I know your frustration!

The farmer won't sell any of the field behind our house. Says they are waiting for the land prices to increase and then they'll sell for building. It's conservation area and green belt.

So, the house goes on the market and we move instead.
 
Yep, a farmer next to me sold off circa 100 acres into various sized plots all of whom have been sold to developers and speculators, some even from abroad.

Its just a matter of time I think as the housing estates are getting ever closer and a local smallish industrial estate is being expanded.

I bought my land for exactly the same reason and am just using the acreage for the horses until I can build or it can be sold to support the infrastructure on any new development.
 
Hmm it's not always because they are holding onto it hoping for richer pickings, there are lots of reasons that farmers hold onto land;

1) It has been farmed for generations and they don't want to start splitting it up
2) Some are stubbon eejits who don't like to see other people happy
3) If they know it will add value to your property, they wont sell it out of principle
4) They play a game, waiting to see how desperate you are, how much you will offer etc
5) They like to be controlling over what happens in 'their' village/town

We have a big field behind our house, and my OH would love to buy it - the farmer has been offered far more than it is worth, but he wont sell it because he doesn't like my OH! Simple as that! The same farmer has been known to sell small parcels of his land next to residential houses for as much as 100k per acre, just because he knows the person buying that house will pay it!

It is so frustrating, but sadly they own it and it is their decision :(
 
Have had my land some 25 years, and would not sell unless it goes for building.
As we are an island with an ever increasing population, land prices will only increase as it becomes a harder commodity to find.... My land is outside a town by some 3 miles, but the boundary between the village and town has already more or less gone,and the government are telling my local council they must build a further 23000 homes by 2025, so with luck some of those may come my way!!
Even when we looked for the paddock, it was hard to find land, we looked for several years before we found it.
Now, I have only road riding as the off road has been built on, but what a good investment my £12000 for 3 1/2 acres seems now!! Wouldn't sell it for anything under £1,000,000!
Offers anyone?
 
Farmer with land adjoining mine won't sell it to me, but after a lot of nagging I have persuaded him to rent it. Don't think it will ever be anything but green belt but he won't part with it. Shocked at some of the prices quoted, 2 plots just up the road from me have recently sold, 13 acres maize stubble for £65,000 and 7 acres grazing £35,000.
 
We have sold a small piece of land ( 60 ft by 100 ft )to neighbour who wanted to have a bigger garden (the house has been massively extended tacking up most of the garden .
We have put an uplift clause on it .
We sold it for use as garden or orchard and if it is ever used for buliding then it is revalued and we get 50% of the increased value.
Suggest to the farmer that he sells to you with a uplift clause which means he would get added value should it ever become building land.
 
horselib said:
We have sold a small piece of land ( 60 ft by 100 ft )to neighbour who wanted to have a bigger garden (the house has been massively extended tacking up most of the garden .
We have put an uplift clause on it .
We sold it for use as garden or orchard and if it is ever used for buliding then it is revalued and we get 50% of the increased value.
Suggest to the farmer that he sells to you with a uplift clause which means he would get added value should it ever become building land.
Click to expand...


Uplift clauses are really common now, I was lucky in that I chose a piece of land without and that was a major consideration when purchasing.
 
My OH has a share in some ag land (been in the family for years) which they have a building option on and are just waiting for someone to make an offer. I don't usually approve of selling ag land for building, but this is on a busy road with an industrial estate one side and a quarry and landfill site on the other, so not exactly in a nice spot and will probably go for industrial rather than housing. My OH has sole use of it (grows wheat) but I would certainly not want to keep my horse there!
 
LHS said:
Uplift clauses are really common now, I was lucky in that I chose a piece of land without and that was a major consideration when purchasing.
Click to expand...

There is an uplift clause on our house and land. Our local town in expanding rapidly and it looks as though we will be swallowed up in the next 5 - 10 years. There are some lovely fields right behind us which the wealthy landowner is hanging on to for building. In the meantime they are lying empty and we are not allowed to hack round them.
 
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