We wish to extend our garden to incorprate a small 500sqm,(approx 1/10th acre) area of our farmers neighbours field (no intention of planting or altering anything) to give our dogs more room to play.

Is there a way to do this legally without the need for paying solicitors fees which would percentage wise, add a great deal to the transaction?
Is there a standard sale document that can be purchased,details added and then and signed by both parties?

Thanks

You can google do it yourself conveyancing and do it yourself no doubt. You can go to a licensed conveyancer who would do it for less than a solicitor.

But personally I would want to employ a solicitor because he would make the checks that you get proper title to the land, and don't obtain any onerous obligations with it (like having to pay to mend the church roof), and have someone to sue if it goes wrong.

The other thing to be aware of is planning status. If there is currently a hedgerow separating your garden from the field, it is possible that you may not be able to take it out. My parents did what you want to do, as did several of their neighbours along the same road, the farmer selling off a strip of his field. Unfortunately one stupid neighbour, despite being advised what would happen, applied for planning permission to build a house in the gap between two houses (originally her garden, as for my parents, ran along the road rather than behind the house) before 10 years had passed, it was just 8 years. (After 10 years without complaint, de facto planning change is obtained.) So the planning office came along and noticed what had happened and threw the book at them, pointing out that the land does not have permission for domestic garden use. Fortunately at that time it was not an offence for them to remove the original hedge separating the gardens from the field, whatever act it is that preserves hedgerows came in about 5 years later. But the council did make them plant a new hedge of agricultural character along the new boundary, and insisted that the garden extensions must remain of agricultural character. So they can be used for fruit trees as an orchard but not flowers. And after all that, neighbour reapplied and got her permission to infill a house in the gap between two properties, even though the only garden that would remain to either property was the field...

In our road, a farmer sold off a field to a property speculation company (only with agricultural status) subdivided into small plots. The council prevented them from putting up any fences or other marks to indicate the separate plots. There was a huge legal battle over it going on for about 3 years. When they weren't allowed to put up fences, they put up yellow sticks, and were eventually forced to take them out.

So it ain't as simple as you think.

FWIW, three years after I bought my present house I discovered that
part of the garden, which had been aquired from the neighbouring farmer
some 15 years earlier, still had Agricultural status. I applied to the
council to change it to Garden use and after a quick visit and payment
of around £200, it was done. It may have helped that the area was laid
largely to lawn and had not been structurally added to.

However, when I applied to the LR to combine my two separate title
deeds into one, I was told that this wasn't possible.

I had known from the outset that the previous owner of the land had
sold it with a caveat that a sizeable further payment would be due to
him if it were ever granted planning permission for the erection of a
residential property.

I suspect that this is not unusual in such transactions and it would
probably be more in the farmer's interest than yours to have the sale
agreement drawn up by professional advisers.

In article ,
zingari wrote:

We wish to extend our garden to incorprate a small 500sqm,(approx 1/10th
acre) area of our farmers neighbours field (no intention of planting or
altering anything) to give our dogs more room to play.

Is there a way to do this legally without the need for paying
solicitors fees which would percentage wise, add a great deal to the
transaction?
Is there a standard sale document that can be purchased,details added
and then and signed by both parties?

Try posting to uk.legal.moderated.

Be warned - you will also need planning permission. The law is such
that neither of you is required to apply for it until the Planning
Authority requires you to, which usually happens when some neighbour
complains. But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.

Yes, I've heard of a number of people coming unstuck over this.
So even though the OP says he isn't going to plant anything or change
anything technically it is still a change of use if he wants it for his
dogs to roam in. In fact just NOT using it for agricultural purposes
could be enough to trigger the need for planning permission.

Depending on how rigid the planning authority is or vindictive the
neighbours it could become a nightmare if applied for retrospectively.

I read once of a farmer extending his vegetable plot slightly into one
of his adjacent fields and the planning authorities getting to hear
about it and they forced him to destroy his veg and put the boundary
back to where it was.

I suggest a casual chat with the local planning officer. They can be
quite amenable to such conversations. It will cost nothing and will tell
you if permission is required or not. What does annoy them are
retrospective applications.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On Oct 20, 9:53*am, David in Normandy
wrote:
wrote:
But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.

Yes, I've heard of a number of people coming unstuck over this.
So even though the OP says he isn't going to plant anything or change
anything technically it is still a change of use if he wants it for his
dogs to roam in. In fact just NOT using it for agricultural purposes
could be enough to trigger the need for planning permission.

Depending on how rigid the planning authority is or vindictive the
neighbours it could become a nightmare if applied for retrospectively.

I read once of a farmer extending his vegetable plot slightly into one
of his adjacent fields and the planning authorities getting to hear
about it and they forced him to destroy his veg and put the boundary
back to where it was.

I suggest a casual chat with the local planning officer. They can be
quite amenable to such conversations. It will cost nothing and will tell
you if permission is required or not. What does annoy them are
retrospective applications.

--
David in Normandy. *
* *To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
* *subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
* *by a filter and not reach my inbox.

I'm interested in your views David as we are in talks about buying
more land, agricultural land. My husband and I have discussed many
uses, not least as a small wood, which already abounds on land we
already own, with the idea of maybe, but only maybe, as I'm not sure I
want the responsibility, of buying a horse for me to ride. At present
I get one from livery. My husband is keen for me to have my own horse
and for it to have acres to roam in, I like to visit the family and
friends in the UK and Eire and I think maybe this would be a
commitment too much for me!

As you live in France, you probably know a lot about this sort of
thing, change of use to what I have mentioned above, what are your
thoughts on this? We don 't need to build stables, we already have
those on our own land.

Judith

wrote in message
...
In article ,
zingari wrote:

Try posting to uk.legal.moderated.

Be warned - you will also need planning permission. The law is such
that neither of you is required to apply for it until the Planning
Authority requires you to, which usually happens when some neighbour
complains. But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I am no way an authority in this field (pelease excuce the pun) but if the
famer changed the use of his field then perhaps planning permission would be
required, but if the purchaser bought part of the field for the purpose of
"training" or exercising dogs, then this would be an original use by the new
owner and not a change of use by the farmer.

Insteresting point..

Excellent info thanks Nick.
Where can i confirm that planning permission wouldnt be required until the planners require it?

In article ,
zingari wrote:

I am no way an authority in this field (pelease excuce the pun) but if
the
famer changed the use of his field then perhaps planning permission
would be
required, but if the purchaser bought part of the field for the
purpose of
"training" or exercising dogs, then this would be an original use by
the new
owner and not a change of use by the farmer.

Insteresting point..

And wrong. Sorry. The classification of use goes with the land and
not the owner.

Excellent info thanks Nick.
Where can i confirm that planning permission wouldnt be required until
the planners require it?

The Town and Country Planning Act. You can probably find it online
somewhere in:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/

However, please note the other posters that too egregious a change
of use without permission will **** off the planners. If I were
doing that, I would attempt to be subtle. For example, if you
fence your area with a portable electric fence, it would not be a
permanent boundary.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Portable electric fence is a brilliant idea if it would do the trick.
The field is landlocked so there is no reason why anyone would know about it.
and any electric fence would be more or less invisible from the nearest road
Thanks
Tony

In article ,
Zhang Dawei wrote:

[...] But, until you have done that, the land is supposed to
be used only for agricultural purposes.

Is there some official specification of what "agricultural purposes"
means somewhere? The reason I ask is that it is clear that certain
things are clearly agricultural in purpose and others are not, but
there may be a grey area in which there is uncertainty which official
specifications or guidelines should be able to help make less grey
somewhat. So, what about:

No. The usual interpretation is growing crops for sale, but some
planning officers can get a bit stroppy. If it had been feasible,
I was hoping to buy a field and turn it into woodland; while they
might have objected to change of use, I was intending to ensure
that there were suitable trees that would be valuable for timber
in 1-200 years (e.g. walnuts), and probably for coppicing in less.
But that would have been on a scale where I could have justified
it as a private commercial venture.

I doubt very much if using 1/10 acre as a dog run or growing even
agricultural crops for personal use would be regarded as acceptable.
And it's not the planning officer that you need to convince, if
push comes to shove, it's the courts.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Zhang Dawei wrote:
So, what about:

a) Growing vegetables as a large kitchen garden, with minimal
ornamental flowers
b) Vegetables only, as in an allotment
c) leaving the land to lie fallow or remain a meadow.
d) Planting flowers that could conceivably be sold, though the
planting scheme is not intensive, so that it might look like a
poorly-designed garden
e) keeping hens
f) growing fruit trees
g) allowing dogs to run around on it, otherwise keeping it as a
"meadow".
h) Having a large garden which concentrates on flowers for show, etc.

Some of these would seem to be agricultural, some not, and some wich
are not clearly and unambiguously either to my own eyes (though I may
just be ignorant here).


Most of the above would likely fail. I had a chat with my former
planning officer along similar lines. The principle they work on is that
once a piece of land is deemed "garden" then it is considered fair game
for property development. So the step from garden to building another
house is relatively small. The step going from agricultural land to
garden they treat a large and are likely to block it because the next
logical step is to put a house on it.
Even growing flowers commercially would be a change of use from
agricultural to horticultural and subject to planning permission.


--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

"zingari" wrote

We wish to extend our garden to incorprate a small 500sqm,(approx 1/10th
acre) area of our farmers neighbours field (no intention of planting or
altering anything) to give our dogs more room to play.

Is there a way to do this legally without the need for paying
solicitors fees which would percentage wise, add a great deal to the
transaction?
Is there a standard sale document that can be purchased,details added
and then and signed by both parties?


My thoughts are....

Can be done, I've Registered Charges myself, but with anything like this you
have to be careful re fraud etc. (Buyer beware) and do "searches" first to
be certain the correct person owns the land.

If it's Registered Land then you need forms which are at...

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/publicatio...asp?pubtype=49

Probably Form OS2 or more likely TP1 or TP2.
There are LR fees attached to this procedure and they are also on that site.
I've always found them helpful on the phone but they used to take their time
with the paperwork IME. (months!)

If it's unregistered land then either register it now or get a Solicitor to
draw up a Deed of Sale which becomes your Deeds.

If your property is Registered, do you want that piece of land attached to
your own LR Certificate, if so phone the LR to find out the procedure. In
that case your own Mortgage Co will need to be told etc. but I doubt they
would object as it increases the worth of the property but they might insist
of a new Charge (Mortgage) being taken with fees charged.

Are you going to do Local Searches too? Forms from your local Council. Just
to make sure they aren't about to put a road through.

As Nick says, also consider change of use...agricultural to garden. Not
liked by most Councils so worth asking/doing first.

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten or have changed, it's been a long
time, but there must be books on the subject.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
just W. of London

"Bob Hobden" wrote ...
"zingari" wrote

We wish to extend our garden to incorprate a small 500sqm,(approx 1/10th
acre) area of our farmers neighbours field (no intention of planting or
altering anything) to give our dogs more room to play.

Is there a way to do this legally without the need for paying
solicitors fees which would percentage wise, add a great deal to the
transaction?
Is there a standard sale document that can be purchased,details added
and then and signed by both parties?


My thoughts are....

Can be done, I've Registered Charges myself, but with anything like this
you have to be careful re fraud etc. (Buyer beware) and do "searches"
first to be certain the correct person owns the land.

If it's Registered Land then you need forms which are at...

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/publicatio...asp?pubtype=49

Probably Form OS2 or more likely TP1 or TP2.
There are LR fees attached to this procedure and they are also on that
site. I've always found them helpful on the phone but they used to take
their time with the paperwork IME. (months!)

If it's unregistered land then either register it now or get a Solicitor
to draw up a Deed of Sale which becomes your Deeds.

If your property is Registered, do you want that piece of land attached to
your own LR Certificate, if so phone the LR to find out the procedure. In
that case your own Mortgage Co will need to be told etc. but I doubt they
would object as it increases the worth of the property but they might
insist of a new Charge (Mortgage) being taken with fees charged.

Are you going to do Local Searches too? Forms from your local Council.
Just to make sure they aren't about to put a road through.

As Nick says, also consider change of use...agricultural to garden. Not
liked by most Councils so worth asking/doing first.

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten or have changed, it's been a long
time, but there must be books on the subject.

Just to clarify something. If you have a "Mortgage" the fact is it is your
Bank/Building Society that has the Mortgage (or Charge) and you have a loan
against it. Can confuse people, a bit like Geranium. :-)

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
just W. of London

Bob Hobden wrote:
Just to clarify something. If you have a "Mortgage" the fact is it is your
Bank/Building Society that has the Mortgage (or Charge) and you have a loan
against it. Can confuse people, a bit like Geranium. :-)

I'm sure I should know better than to ask, but what is confusing
about Geranium?