Why do i need a grazing license?

[poiuytrewq]

We moved house to a place with my partners job in Feb and took on a 5 acre paddock which unused in a while but had years ago grazed cows and sheep. We also took a part of some arable fields close to the house for winter grazing. We have fenced and sewed grass.
We have to have a grazing license at the cost of £500 p/a which obviously is still cheaper than livery would cost but not a bill I was expecting!
Is this normal? Why do I need it? I've privately rented a field for the past god knows how long and never had to have a license there.

 

[cobgoblin]

Is this for the arable land? If so I would say it was because of the change of use to 'domestic' horse grazing. I wouldn't have thought it was necessary for the 5 acre field as that was always grazing.

 

[cobgoblin]

http://www.mills-reeve.com/letting-land-for-grazing-horses-a-landowners-brief-guide-09-03-2014/

Interesting about the single payment claiming.

 

[Archangel]

I have had a grazing licence for a 3 acre field. Are you sure it isn't £50 rather than £500 as that seems excessive. Mine ran for 364 days a year which meant the horses had to be off the field for 24 hours.

 

[limestonelil]

Grazing licences are not an unusual thing to have, and put very basically, they are issued so that you as the user can't lay any claim/ownership/rights to that field and the owner can get it back when they need it, and it won't have been trashed/rubbish tipped/ abused etc, as you could have been evicted prior to getting the field into that state. If you see what I mean. It's a specific rental agreement in effect, with whatever inclusions/exclusions the landowner requires.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Definitely £500 sadly. Who sets the rate?
I can't complain too much it works out at £10 a week!
Cobgoblin, yes it may well be to do with the change of use? It covers the other place also but maybe that's not actually nessasery.
Interesting link, thanks

 

[Maesfen]

Are you sure it's not just a grazing or cropping agreement for the land? Most farmers who rent out land to others use them to cover themselves and prove to the accountants it's value. I would imagine it's roughly equating to £100 per acre which is a fair rent especially if it's a 364 day one and not just seasonal from April to October.

 

[jrp204]

Are you saying it is £500 on top of your rent? If not it is just a formal agreement to protect the landowner. If you are unsure you could ask a rural land agent to look at it.

 

[honetpot]

Its to do with how tenancy/letting agreements are seen in law.
I had a grazing licence for 2 acres and paid £950 for 11 months, and it did not even adjoin our house so you are not being ripped off. The licences essentially gives you the right to take a crop ie grass off the land, and you have no long term tenancy rights.

If you rent out a house normally you do a six month short hold agreement, if you rent it out with acreage there is a chance it could be seen as a Agricultural Tenancy Business Agreement, which gives the tenant extra rights which is to protect farm tenants from being evicted from land that they have made an investment in.
https://www.gov.uk/agricultural-tenancies
Who ever has rented the land to you has rented it on a grazing license to prevent this and its quite normal. Basically you are getting a good deal, but if you are worried check with a solicitor before you sign anything.

 

[Orangehorse]

Yes, it is a grazing licence so it doesn't slide into a tenancy. A tenancy creates rights of occupation whereas a grazing licence is a temporary agreement. It doesn't mean that they want to get rid of you at the end of the year, it means that SHOULD they want you to remove the horses all they have to do is not renew the grazing licence.

 

[Pebble101]

Grazing licences are not an unusual thing to have, and put very basically, they are issued so that you as the user can't lay any claim/ownership/rights to that field and the owner can get it back when they need it,.

Also means you can't claim it's a business tenancy where it is harder for the owner to claim back his land when he wants it.

 

[aintgotnohay]

i copied and pasted this for you OP

Although I have previously written about agricultural tenancies, there is a second tier of agreements for occupying agricultural land: these are not ‘full’ tenancies and instead, confer the lesser legal right of a licence. It can be helpful to think of a licence in terms of ‘letting someone onto your land to do something’, versus a tenancy, where you are granting them exclusive possession of your land, to the exclusion of you (and everyone else). Ultimately, it is a question of law whether an agreement is a tenancy or a licence and the actual wording of the document is nearly irrelevant in this regard; be warned! The key question is whether the occupier has exclusive possession of the land. As you can imagine, this has led to a lot of case law i.e. arguments.

Grazing licences commonly crop up (forgive the pun) in cases where the owner is happy to let a few fields, on a short-term basis, whilst they are not using them, but wants to be able to regain possession of the land quickly and without fuss; in this regard, licences can be an extremely useful alternative to a tenancy, as when the period ends, the grazier must leave, no ifs, no buts. The other big advantage of grazing licences is that the land is still deemed to be occupied by the landowner and so he can continue claiming single payment scheme on it.

Further, from an inheritance tax point of view, you start qualifying for agricultural property relief on the land after only owning it for two years if you are in occupation of it, instead of seven years, if it is occupied by a tenant. In either case, it is vital that the agreement is properly drafted and cannot be argued to be a de facto tenancy (in which case you would lose these advantages).

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Although it varies, a typical grazing licence would run from 1 May until 31 October in any year although really any period is now fine, as long as it is for less than two years (at that point you run in to problems with farm business tenancy legislation). It gives the grazier the right to graze their animals on the land during that time, in return for a ‘fee’. The fee is usually paid in a lump sum; partially from a practical point of view, but also to differentiate it from rent which is paid periodically. Appropriate rights to access the land should also be granted, which back up the assertion that you are ‘permitting’ the grazier to go on to your land, not giving them an interest in it. Typically, the grazier covenants to pay the fee and not do anything which is likely to harm the land: you see the odd licence which prevents the grazier putting on known fence-breakers, but I can only assume this would be near impossible to enforce in practice.

There should also be an obligation on the grazier to remove the animals at the end of the licence period (!) and to indemnify the owner in respect of any losses suffered. Further, if appropriate, there should be an obligation on the grazier to comply with the provisions of any grant scheme affecting the land and/or cross compliance rules; after all, it would be extremely annoying to lose one’s payments, because the grazier has taken it upon themselves to dig up a hedgerow. There are usually few, if any, obligations on the landowner. Grazing licences can and often are, renewed annually but it can be helpful to include a clause stating that this is not to be assumed to be the case – again, this helps to negate any inference that a more permanent right, such as a tenancy, is what is really intended by the parties.

Profit a Prendre agreements (known also as rights of herbage or pasturage) arise less frequently, but are really a different way of achieving the same end; you are still letting a third party’s animals occupy your land in return for a fee, but the legal rationale is different. In a profit, you are effectively selling your crop of grass to the third party and they are taking that crop of grass, via the mouths of their animals (I am laughing as I write this – you just could not make up some of the conceits of English law). Again, the landowner remains the occupier of the land, as he is growing the crop of grass that he is selling, which means that the same advantages regarding subsidy and tax relief apply. Drafting considerations are largely the same as for grazing licences, although in profit agreements, you would also expect to see positive obligations on the landowner to maintain the fences and keep down weeds and similar, which is to prove that they are growing and tending the crop (of grass) that is being sold.

A quick note on horses: the problem being that as they are no longer considered to be ‘livestock’ (unless they are destined to be hamburgers) they fall into an odd category of their own. What is therefore, vital, is to understand the circumstances in which you are letting them graze your land; if it is a single owner with a couple of animals, a grazing licence should be fine. If however, the grazing is ancillary to a larger operation, such as a riding school or livery yard, where a significant level of service is provided, then probably best avoid licences altogether and instead use a tenancy and ensure that it is contracted out of the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. This avoids the tenant obtaining business security of tenure, which would definitely not be a good thing (for the landowner)!