Animals abandoned what can I do?

[CruiseCruiseBaby]

I’m trying to be vague here but need some advice. We have a small plot of land that we keep empty, but don’t want to sell. In august we were approached by someone we vaguely knew (recognised from town/school etc but not on speaking terms) who asked if they could put some animals on the land during winter. We agreed and arranged a rental fee. They then put lots of animals on the land (more than we had agreed) but seemed to care for them so we left them to it. The agreement was due to end in March but they never left. So we spoke to them and gave them a months notice to leave at the end of April. But they seem to have just abandoned the animals. They’ve not visited this month and the animals need daily food and water. We’ve started to feed them because they were clearly starving, but now don’t know what to do since they’re not answering calls or messages. We don’t want to rehome the animals because we don’t own them, but don’t want to keep them either. I want to call RSPCA but dp isn’t keen as he’s worried we will get into trouble since they’re on our land? What can we do?

How awful! Good for you for looking after them. I would phone rspca and explain the situation at least. I can't see how you would be in trouble.

Call the RSPCA.

They've abandoned the animals, it doesn't matter where or who owns the land, it's illegal. You won't get in trouble for owning, you have no responsibility for those animals and you also have a contract drawn up proving you allowed them to be there for a set length of time. Definitely call the RSPCA, give them all the information you have and how they can contact them, if you don't/can't feed them they're in danger and hopefully this will make them a priority.

Here's some information here, I was assuming it's horses but could obviously be wrong:
www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/horse/what-to-do-if-you-find-an-abandoned-or-fly-grazing-horse

Call the RSPCA before you have dead animals on your land.

Thank you, I don’t think I was very discrete but yes they’re horses. I’ll give the RSPCA a call and see what can be done. I’m just worried the people come back wanting them or something? I’ll keep feeding them and see what RSPCA say

You won't get into trouble with them thinking it's you. Anyone can report, dog walkers, other locals, anybody.

You owe it to the animals to report this to the RSPCA (and I'd be inclined to call the police non-emergency and tell them as well).

call the rspca although they may require you to issue abandonment notices first

Had a feeling it would be horses

you may find this helpful and the horses magically disappear before the time frame is up www.bhs.org.uk/advice-and-information/the-law/abandonment-and-fly-grazing

@HoundHound they won’t die, we can look after them and wouldn’t let them suffer, I just didn’t know if I was being too quick with letting the owners come back.

Give them 14 days notice that you will be moving them to a livery yard, at their cost. I bet they move them. We had a similar situation and this worked.