Agricultural ties

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Agricultural ties

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Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 05 12:05 pm Post subject: Agricultural ties

It's been a while since we've had a question on agricultural ties. Would growing bio-fuels or growing vegetables for box schemes/farmers markets count as agriculture? Does income from grants and subsidies count as income from agriculture?

Some ties say 50% of your income must be from agriculture but if you only have a small income is there any lower limit? For example if you only have an income of £1000 a year making £500 may not be too difficult.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 05 12:08 pm Post subject:
From my understanding of it a tie means that you're already generating 50% of your income from agriculture, most planning depts will take a view on someone going to them with a business plan that shows them being financially viable by year three (apparently)

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 05 7:21 pm Post subject:
The other difficult bit is does this aply to one person of a family, or 50% of the whole families income, and if just one, does that mean the mortgage can only be in their name? I gather they are quite individual, and vary a lot, though.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 05 7:23 pm Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

I gather they are quite individual, and vary a lot, though.

Yup, I think you need to look at it on a per case, or at least planning district level

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 06 7:51 am Post subject:
Think about this, in general what would happen if you broke the tie? Could you be evicted or just fined?

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 06 11:12 am Post subject:
A colleague of mine found this which may be of interest: https://www.wandb.co.uk/about/newslet/lotl1099.html#The%20Removal%20of%20Agricultural%20Tie

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 06 11:13 am Post subject:

And some more:

https://www.investmentlanddirectory.co.uk/planning-permission.htm

An 'ag-tag' affects the price of the property and also the lenders who are prepared to give you a mortgage. They are enforced through a Section 106 agreement and are a binding contract between the local authority and property owner.

You can have an agricultural tie removed by proving that there is no longer a requirement for this kind of property. This is an expensive and time consuming process as you usually have to advertise the property for several years. If no complying buyers materialise who can afford to buy the property then you may get the restriction lifted.

Alternatively, if a 'non-complying' owner has lived in a property for more than 10 years unchallenged, they can usually obtain a 'certificate of lawful' occupation. This is no consolation if you are looking to build your dream home and discover late in the day that it has agricultural ties.

The final route to lift an 'ag-tag' are agencies who for a 'no win, no fee' service will challenge the working of agricultural ties. They can sometimes succeed if they can prove that the wording is unworkable or unacceptable. Their service, if they win, will cost around a thousand pounds.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 06 11:20 am Post subject: Re: Agricultural ties

Treacodactyl wrote:

Some ties say 50% of your income must be from agriculture but if you only have a small income is there any lower limit? For example if you only have an income of £1000 a year making £500 may not be too difficult.

But could you live on such a small income, given that council tax is likely to be greater than £1,000. I know that that was just a nominal figure, but wasn't there a recent discussion which reckoned that about £10,000 a year was what was required due to things such as council tax, utility bills, etc.?

Peter.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 06 5:57 pm Post subject:

You wouldn't have to, if say you bought a property outright (I know, but stay with me!) in one spouses name, and that spose was earning £500 a year from agriculture, and the other spouse was paying all the bills from a normal job. That could work, as the owner is getting more than 50% of their income from agriculture. If the tie says that the household must get more than 50% from agriculture, it wouldn't work, but if the said spouse retired having worked in agriculture, then it might still be allowed.

I think they are so individual that its hard to discuss them generally, but I'd bet noone checks, once the sale has gone through. I expect it wouldn't be too hard to obey the letter and not the spirit, if you have a bit of felxibility with your finances (after all, 50% of nuffin is nuffin, so all you'd need is a house wife/husband, may be selling the odd pot of jam for the look of the thing)

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 1:46 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the links Behemoth, I'll look at them tonight. Peter, the numbers I gave were just an example, realistically £10k seems about right so we would need to fund £5k from agriculture and £5k from something else. It seems common sense to me to look at other ways to make money and not rely on just one thing but it seems daft that something like freelancing from home or investments performing well could mean less than 50% of the income coming from agriculture and being kicked off, especially as we would end up ploughing the extra money into projects the government seems keen on such as conservation. WW, I suspect we will have to start looking at some properties and investigating the ties if they have them then decide what to do.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 1:55 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Peter, the numbers I gave were just an example, realistically £10k seems about right so we would need to fund £5k from agriculture and £5k from something else. It seems common sense to me to look at other ways to make money and not rely on just one thing but it seems daft that something like freelancing from home or investments performing well could mean less than 50% of the income coming from agriculture and being kicked off, especially as we would end up ploughing the extra money into projects the government seems keen on such as conservation.

Yep, I knew that they were an example, but since you were using them to say "£500 would be quite easy from agriculture", I thought that we didn't ought to give a misleadfing impression. Indeed, as you point out, "just £500" might make things a little difficult when a magazine prints your "how I survived my first year on my small-holding article" article. Still, you can always console yourself with the fact that you'd have a second article "How I lost my farm by becoming too rich". I can't believe that people would be that fussy, though, would they?

Peter.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 2:35 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

I suppose there would also be a question of how broadly that "something else" could be interpreted and still count as agriculture. If you were to, for example, use 5 acres as a smallholding and let 20 acres for grazing by someone else would that count? what if the grazing was for horses? what if you let a barn for use as a riding school? They're all rural businesses and all valid ways of diversifying but do they count as agricultural?

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 2:38 pm Post subject:
Land used for horses isn't agricultural.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 2:59 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

Land used for horses isn't agricultural.

OK bad example!

But presumably there is a grey area with any agricultural requirement or are they usually specified so tightly that there is no ambiguity (and possibly very little flexibility in what you could do)

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 06 3:02 pm Post subject:
Amibiguity is more or less the name of the game in any of these agreements, that's why they're often challenged and occasionally overturned.

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