Thinking of Buying Land - can anyone help with some questions?

Grumpy Herbert

Grumpy Herbert

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I'm thinking of buying some land for my 2 oldies. Having never done this before, I naturally have some questions! So, here we go:

1. I have seen 6 acres of land for sale, but this has been used for crops not grazing so would need to be re-sown. How long do I have to leave after sowing before the land can be grazed? Would I be able to turn out safely in a small area and give hay until then (depending on what crops have been grown - it's just stubble now)? Would I get a reasonable yield of hay off 3 acres if I decided to just use half for grazing?
2. This land already has planning permission for change of use and for 6 stables to be put up. Do I need planning permission for field shelters, a mobile home, an area of hard-standing? What else may I want to consider putting on the land?
3. How much (roughly) would it cost to fence 6 acres?
4. How would I go about getting water and electricity connected?
5. The land is quite isolated, so security may be an issue as there are no houses nearby. Is anyone else in this position, has it been a problem, and what can I do to make things as secure as possible?
6. If I decide not to go ahead with this, where is the best place to find grazing to buy or rent?

Think that's all, but no doubt more questions will crop up!
 
I'll give it a go. I bought some land a couple of years ago.

1. You wouldn't be able to re-sow until the spring and it wouldn't be usable until the autumn at the earliest, and then only if it is a dry autumn. You would risk trashing it using it during winter 2011/12, as the grass won't have established a thick root system and covered all the soil yet. You could fence off part of the stubble as a turnout area until then - it is liable to get very very muddy so pick the best-drained bit. It will need ploughing/cultivating and re-seeding at the end of it. The hay from 3 acres should feed your two oldies happily, but you will have to pay a farmer/contractor to make it for you.
2. You would need planning permission for anything that isn't on the current planning permission. Have a good look at the current permission - it will be available online at your local concil's website. You could find yourself with a very tough job getting planning permission for a mobile home. You should consider putting up access tracks and what about a manege?
3. Fencing costs vary hugely. It completely depends upon your choice of fencing. Post and 2 rails? Post and 4 rails? Wooden posts and electric fencing? Stone walls? Hedges? You need to consider the distance to be fenced i.e. the perimeter plus any internal fence lines.
4. Hasn't it got water already? Most fields have a trough on a mains supply. You would need to get quotes from your local water company and electricity provider: the price will depend upon the distance from the existing mains.
5. It depends so much upon the area and the visibility of the property. But the big thing is to leave no tack on site.
6. You need to find out which of your local estage agents specialise in agricultural/equestrian properties. I've always found it useful to search for your area on

Other things to consider:
- access. Does it have direct road access? If not, what are the legal implications of crossing other people's land to get to it.
- soil. What soil type is it? Sandy/gravelly soils tend to be free-draining but relatively low nutrition - perfect for good doers who live out. Clay soils tend towards bogginess and mud, they can also dry and crack in hot summers, but in the right weather they are very productive.
- topography - is it flat, slightly sloped, cliff-face? They all affect your land management and drainage. Slightly sloped is best. Parts of my field are too steep and wet for a powerful tractor to pull a baler up, so the farmer who makes my hay has to bale it going downhill only. Does the land flood?
- rights - is is being sold with full rights to a) shooting/hunting and b) Single Farm Payment. You don't want to end up with a field that somebody else has a right to shoot on, or on which you can't claim your SFP. On that last point, I'm not certain if you can claim SFP on equestrian land.

You could pay anything from £3000/acre to £25,000/acre on a 6 acre plot with planning for stables. The price is entirely based on how much somebody is willing to pay.
 
That was a very comprehensive reply. Re the planning permission, since it already has permission for stables it shouldn't cause too much difficulty if you wanted to change some things. You will not get permission for a mobile home (unless you are a gypsy!). If you say "for security" the Council would just say "tough you should have thought of that first" or words to that effect.

Re lighting - there may be solar lighting available now.
Re water - connection charges horrendous, I mean £000s. We bought a field years and years ago and the water main went right past it in the lane and the water board wanted £5,000 then.

Six acres is lots for 2 horses, they could get by on 2 or 3 acres, but with only that amount you couldn't make hay.
You could fence off some of the stubble as a temporary enclosure, I sometimes used to put mine out on set-aside which had been wheat. They ate the grass from under the hedge and the grass that was growing through the winter and came to no harm

One idea would be to make 5 enclosures so one for each season and a winter sacrifice field. You should have lots of hay from 3 acres. You could sow it with a suitable horse mix, get a contractor to make haylege and sell the surplus.

You could plant a hedge and some trees/shrubs to provide shelter. Quite a lot of scope on that size plot. As well as the cost per acre, and the cost of water/fencing, don't forget legal charges and stamp duty.
 
i bought 12 acres a few years ago for mine so i will try help as much as i can....


it will take approx 2 years for grass seed to grow stable enough roots to be pulled about by the horses you can do it after a year but i found the grass has ended up patchy.

i had planning for 3 stables and a field shelter.... if field shelter is movable then you dont need planning but if it is hard standing then it is always better to check with your council. a static caravan doesnt always need planning permision either but again you should check with council first as a rule if it is not being lived in as a main residence it should not need it. fencing post and rail around the outer boundary cost me £3500 approx and electric sections cost about £1500 but this was about 7 years ago so will cost more now. i have a water tank behind a static caravan and costs around £200 to get installed and £400 per year to get re-filled. electric is solar panels and main electric. we were isolated before we built on the land (our house) and we put up cameras and paddlocks on the gates ext when we went home. it isnt ideal but it is better than nothing. are you planning to live there or just keep the horses there?
 
NoCollection - thanks for your reply - it's answered all of my questions! The asking price is £60,000 for the land, so about in the middle of the price range you gave. I hadn't even thought of your extra points to consider, so thanks for that.

Orangehorse - I know 6 acres is a lot for 2, but I thought I may be able to get a couple of liveries as there's planning for 6 stables, or put the rest aside for hay. I think it may be wheat that's been grown on the field, so it's interesting to hear that yours grazed on similar without any ill effects.

Tuppence's Fortune - sounds like you've done more or less what I would like to do. I wouldn't be living in the caravan, I just thought it would be nice to have to sit in and warm up/have a drink etc. It does worry me that there wouldn't be anyone around overnight, but I'm fed up of being restricted on livery yards so I guess that's a price I would have to pay. I didn't even know you could get water tanks for a water supply - you learn something new every day! I was interested to hear that you have now built a house on your land - that would just be brilliant!

Thanks to you all, you've given me some food for thought!
 
A cheaper option for fencing is stock fencing with the top wire just wire instead of barbed. Then hook this up to the electrics :) Best of both worlds :)

My OH does fencing like this and charges between £2-£3 per meter depending on the amount of fencing to be put up. Then you have your materials on top of that... It soon adds up.

I have stock fencing around the perimiter and post and electric tape fencing on the inside. The internal fencing for 4 and a half acres cost me £400. There's a really good site for electric fencing - http://ukcountrystore.co.uk/

People say that 6 acres is too much for 2 horses - I disagree. I had 2 horses (well actually youngsters 13h3 and 14h3) and I had just enough grazing with them living out 24/7. I think you would be really pushed on 3 acres TBH - if you can afford the 6, go for it. I agree with the rotation thing - this year I divided mine into several smaller paddocks and kept them on just one acre all summer. I managed to get one cut of hay off the other 3 acres and still have as much grass as at the start of winter last year. It really does help to really ration them in the summer - good for their weight too lol

Go for it! It's the best thing I ever did - my stress levels are much less now :)
 
if you go on google you can generally find water tankers but i just had a look in the yellow pages and found a good company. we still have it even though we had the chance to get mains water installed but it works out cheaper in the long run to get a tank and it lasts us almost a full year and provides water for the troffs too. security is always a problem no matter where you are but if you have visable signs up which say cctv (even if you dont) and even the caravan being there it does deter robbers from coming. you do need to think about where you will store your hay and straw ext and you should buy your hay off the same person each time if you can as this will build a relationship with them and it will be easier for you to buy it rather than searching around every year.i split my 12 acres into 3 paddocks of 3 acres and 2 paddocks of an acre, then i had the stables and a manage built along with the house on the other acre. you do have ups and downs when you move somewhere alone. maybe you know someone with a horse that is reliable and trustworthy who you may want to put up with yours as a sort of livery? we did that for the first year or so. we got a good friend up with her 3 horses sectioned off a bit of a paddock and charged her £15 per horse per week. it is a bit of money in your pocket, plus if you cant get there for what ever reason or you go on holiday you have someone there to check on and feed your horses and vice verser for you friend to do the same. it may be worth thinking about. think about how much a DIY yard normally costs where you live... normally between £20-£30 per week where i am, if they have 1 horse ask them for £20 if they have more than 1 come up with a deal for them like £15 per horse per week. it helps you out alot.
 
Re stubble field - you need to exercise a bit of caution. Mine were stabled at night with plenty of hay and had a 10 acre stubble field to roam around in, so there was quite a lot of grass for them to eat under the hedges. It was more for a leg stretch for them, rather than for them to get a lot to eat. Wheat grains can cause colic and death.

Interestingly they didn't seem to use the whole of the field, they seemed to spend most of their time in the top 5 acres; I suppose it was more sheltered. They could keep an eye on what was going on in the yard too.
 
Most of the people have answered everything really well. Just a few more things to think of...

Remember that the stables are going to cost a fair bit more to buy, but could make you some money back in livery. Include concrete etc in your estimates.

Six acres should be fine for you, not way too much. By the time you've fenced off a stable yard, muck heap, area to park a caravan/trailer etc thats almost an acre gone. You can keep half back for hay, which should get you enough hay/haylage for the winter. That leaves you with a two acre turnout, which is great if the ground is good - round here it churns up, so they'd need more.. You may want a menage at some point.

Re seeding is going to be at least a year before you can use it as a normal field. Perhaps fence off an acre and use that initially for turnout with hay while the rest establishes?

Water - get your gutters around the stables positioned so that they run into a huge water tub at each end. You'd be amazed how much water comes off the roof of six stables - have a lid on it to prevent falling leaves.

Caravan - they don't like statics generally, but you could buy an old mobile caravan for nothing on e bay, and still run a kettle etc. I'd be inclined to have one of the stables as a tack/rug room with a couple of chairs and a kettle in there.

We have six stables for three horses, and use them all! Three have hay and straw etc in them.

It is hard work having your own yard. All the maintenance falls to you, but its so worth it! I'd go for it. Prices will always go up.. Good luck.x
 
A word of warning, if the PP for the stables is relatively recent, it may be restricted to private use only, ours is. Livery has to be separately permissioned these days and then you are in for business rates, insurance etc. BUT if they havent stated on the PP, then you should be ok, important to check tho.

A small mobile caravan would be OK but a static caravan would probably not be, in theory it might be if you didnt live in it but in practice the authorities are understandably suspicious of anyone parking one of them up in a field! They tend to assume that if its a static its because you are planning to live in it! Much cheaper too to have a wee touring one.

Would recommend investigating a steel shipping container for ultra secure tack storage, tho try to get an insulated one to reduce condensation issues.

If theres no water and the connection costs are too high, consider having a borehole sunk. It will add value and over the years will pay for itself.

Would also recommend that later on you see if you can find someone with a few sheep to rotation graze your paddocks, they will eat the bits the horses leave, help with any ragwort that pops up and will gently fertilise without a massive lush kick that chemical fertilisers give.

Edited to add that the groundworks, electrics etc for stables can cost up to 50% of the cost of the stables themselves, so add that into calculations.
 
We are currently going through this so will try to help as best I can;

1. I have seen 6 acres of land for sale, but this has been used for crops not grazing so would need to be re-sown. How long do I have to leave after sowing before the land can be grazed? Would I be able to turn out safely in a small area and give hay until then (depending on what crops have been grown - it's just stubble now)? Would I get a reasonable yield of hay off 3 acres if I decided to just use half for grazing?

OK, you could potentially put down grass seed now (I tend to go by when the farmers will still sow crops) but realistically you should wait until spring now. Then it will need one full year minimum to grow - this must be rigorously maintained, topped regularly etc for the first 18 months - 2 years to get a good covering and thickness. In an ideal world I would wait two years before grazing, but you could get away with grazing after a year as long as it is not overgrazed. Please do not put your horses onto a wheat stubble - this is particularly dangerous, especially if the combine has not been successful in removing all the wheat. I have seen first hand what wheat can do to a horse, and it isn't nice. A barley stubble would be safe however. Just remember, stubble will turn to deep mud in the winter - perhaps look at a small woodchipped area instead? Local tree surgeons would be more than happy to "dump" their waste into a particular area for you - we have been inundated with tree surgeons offering us free woodchips this year. If you looked after your field well, yes, you would get a reasonable yield of hay off of 3 acres, I would guess you would get more than enough to keep your own horses going, and even a bit to sell.

2. This land already has planning permission for change of use and for 6 stables to be put up. Do I need planning permission for field shelters, a mobile home, an area of hard-standing? What else may I want to consider putting on the land?

Planning is very specific, sometimes even down to the materials you can use. You will only be able to erect exactly what your current planning is for. If you want to make changes, you can submit these and hope they get approved. Mobile homes are a big issue with a lot of authorities, and you are not likely to get one. However, a friend did argue that as her yard was used as a 'stud' they needed on-site accomodation for the stud groom. This enabled them to have a static caravan for up to 5 years (possibility to renew after 5 years)

3. How much (roughly) would it cost to fence 6 acres?

This totally depends on the fencing you use, how you seperate it etc. Fencing varies from around £2/m - £20/m depending on what you go for. A friend recently spent in the region of £450,000 fencing their fields - this was proper super-tornado stud fencing, and we are talking around 50 acres. It is definately something that ends up being far more expensive than you initially thought. My preferred fencing method is perimeter in post and rail, with wooden post and electric tape as internal fences.

4. How would I go about getting water and electricity connected?

This depends where your nearest supply is. OH recently spent £10,000 getting water supplied to an industrial unit he bought. I have also known people to get hooked up with water for as little as £500. Electricity depends where you nearest transformer is - I haven't had too much to do with this, but a few years ago some neighbours bought a field and were quoted £40,000 to hook up electric to the yard. They bought a generator instead, and used that.

5. The land is quite isolated, so security may be an issue as there are no houses nearby. Is anyone else in this position, has it been a problem, and what can I do to make things as secure as possible?

I have not been in this position, but would recommend keeping anything expensive at home, steel lining tack/rug rooms, hefty chains and padlocks on the gates, cameras (or even dummy cameras) clearly visible - rely heavily on the visual deterrants - if it doesn't look easy to get into, the casual thief wont bother.

6. If I decide not to go ahead with this, where is the best place to find grazing to buy or rent?

Word of mouth. We have spent ages looking at numerous websites, joined lots of mailing lists for various estate agents, and found more out from people we have spoken to than we have ever learnt through the proper channels. Call local farmers, or farm agents and see if they have anything on their books. Local farm auctioneers are also good as they tend to know who is retiring, thinking of retiring, looking to sell or rent etc.

Hope this helps - good luck
 
These answers are brilliant, thank you to everyone who has replied! At least I have some idea what to expect cost wise now, and have some great solutions to the various problems I could foresee. I went and got the particulars from the agent today - the plot looks perfect size and layout wise, and it does have a house adjacent after all, so less of a problem re security. It's also been on the market for a while, so they may be open to offers. But if this one doesn't pan out, I feel confident enough to go ahead and buy now knowing what I can do with a plot.
Not been on here for absolute ages, so it's been nice to come back and see that I can still get some great advice - thanks again, folks!
 
agree with above. check the PP is it for private use only? once you have 1 livery (DIY or not) you will be liable for business rates, and commercial insurance ie public liablility and 3 c liability. Even if not specified on the PP you as the landowner are responsible for all stock on the land. Good luck, purchase price is good, and how exciting to plan the yard to work for you. does the land have a holding number? agricultural buildings can be put up on a 28 day notice ie a big barn for hay/straw storage and tractor and implement storage, often in addition to the stables.
 
ofcourseyoucan said:
agree with above. check the PP is it for private use only? once you have 1 livery (DIY or not) you will be liable for business rates, and commercial insurance ie public liablility and 3 c liability. Even if not specified on the PP you as the landowner are responsible for all stock on the land. Good luck, purchase price is good, and how exciting to plan the yard to work for you. does the land have a holding number? agricultural buildings can be put up on a 28 day notice ie a big barn for hay/straw storage and tractor and implement storage, often in addition to the stables.
Click to expand...

There is the agric notice thing for agric buildings but one word of caution: a lot of planning exemptions are restricted to holdings of over 5 hectares so worth checking it out with planners as it may or may not be accepted for a barn on 6 acres.
 
Just to add, where i keep my horses they claim Single Farm Payment. Its not much but its enough to get the hedges cut and the feild topped.

Good luck, i would love to be able to buy some land of my own.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
A word of warning, if the PP for the stables is relatively recent, it may be restricted to private use only, ours is. Livery has to be separately permissioned these days and then you are in for business rates, insurance etc. BUT if they havent stated on the PP, then you should be ok, important to check tho.

A small mobile caravan would be OK but a static caravan would probably not be, in theory it might be if you didnt live in it but in practice the authorities are understandably suspicious of anyone parking one of them up in a field! They tend to assume that if its a static its because you are planning to live in it! Much cheaper too to have a wee touring one.

Would recommend investigating a steel shipping container for ultra secure tack storage, tho try to get an insulated one to reduce condensation issues.

If theres no water and the connection costs are too high, consider having a borehole sunk. It will add value and over the years will pay for itself.

Would also recommend that later on you see if you can find someone with a few sheep to rotation graze your paddocks, they will eat the bits the horses leave, help with any ragwort that pops up and will gently fertilise without a massive lush kick that chemical fertilisers give.

Edited to add that the groundworks, electrics etc for stables can cost up to 50% of the cost of the stables themselves, so add that into calculations.
Click to expand...

as a rule pp is different if you are using it for livery but the law says a livery counts as a premises that has livery for more than 3 horses and if you earn more than a set amount from the liveries per year and will then have to pay business tax ext if you are renting a piece of field to a friend and you have a mutual agreement and are not making a taxable income you do not have to get pp for livery, just private use. again if in doubt check with your local council they will be able to advise you properly. different councils have different criteria x
 
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