Would you buy a house with land? (Not a smallholding)

[BunnyWilliams]

While we wait to get an offer on our house, I'm daydreaming about where we want to move to.

We've seen a property that we both love (it has been on the market since last Feb, probably due to the fact that the pictures don't do it justice). DH is keener than I am, mainly because I think of all the practicalities and he just focuses on the fun stuff 😄

It's a reasonably sized 4-bed cottage (not massive but not small) with tons of character in a beautiful country park location about 20 mins away from where we are now. Private lane. Next to a little stream. Really idyllic.

It has approximately 2/2.5 acres of land with it. One 'paddock', a little woodland area, a bit that's currently all just pebbled (I've got dreams of creating a potager there) and then a top field which is pretty large and would potentially make a good business spin-off in the future (dog walking field, glamping/camping for walkers etc.). The current owners allow the neighbouring farmer to keep his sheep on the field for free so the grass is kept down. The house is off-grid for gas (oil) and water (private spring).

We wouldn't do the whole smallholding thing. We've got three young children and a dog and that's enough! I would like to explore growing our own food (hence the potager) but I'd do it slowly and as a learning opportunity.

I work freelance from home with pretty flexible hours. We both earn well, although this is at the top end of our budget.

Does it seem like too much to take on? I keep thinking about all the unknowns of fence repairing, dealing with fallen trees etc. but I don't know how often that occurs in reality. The house is lovely but the bedrooms are smaller than we have now - it's a payoff of the land and location vs the house size.
I had an absolutely amazing childhood growing up surrounded by nature and the freedom to go off and explore, and I'd love to give that to our three. My eldest has ADHD and being outside does him the world of good. He loves adventuring.

Yes, the spring water is drinkable. I asked if it had ever been contaminated in the 20 odd years they've been there and they confidently said no, but we've only got their word for it.

There's a top field (the one with sheep) and a bottom paddock which is next to the house and is flat and mown. DH is of course very excited that he'd be able to justify a ride-on mower for that. There's also a 'formal garden' with grass but it's not that big, just average garden size.

Thank you! I'm becoming convinced that we actually could manage it after all!

Sod's law dictates that it will probably finally sell just before we become proceedable!

Presumably you have a septic tank for sewage ? That would be a push for me but the Spring water would do it for me completely . What if it became contaminated or dried up ?

I have 7 acres which I managed myself for 35 years. Good fencing is expensive but quality post and rail only needs doing once every 25 years or so. A sit on mower, or paying your local farmer to top it (or make hay) in the summer is an alternative. After that it just needs brush cutting every autumn.

You'll be absolutely fine. I loved it for years and the freedom of having acres to run around is great. You can always rent land out for grazing easily.

We currently live rurally next to a field. The owner of the field has an agreement with a local farmer that he will top the field, trim the hedgerows and maintain the fences in exchange for grazing. I think the occasional butchered sheep exchanges hands too. Seems like a good agreement that works for everyone.

Lived like this happily for 20 years. Three children. We used a lawn tractor for the grass. Local farmer for fencing, hedge laying, dry stone walling. We kept hens, ducks, geese, guinea fowl just for fun.

The old house did need a lot of work as in insulation, that had never been addressed. So underfloor insulation. Dry lining walls. New boiler and radiators. New log burner.

We let the donkey man use the field in the summer.

Teenagers, they all learnt to drive quickly. We had an old car for them. We had a 4x4 for the straw, grain, a trailer too.

Private water supplies are tricky. With the changing weather I’ve found the tank silts up a lot as rainfall patterns mesn you get a weeks worth of rain in two hours. I’m planning to switch to a borehole at some point £25k just to be forewarned.

Try and find a copy of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour.
Published in 1970s it is like a text book.

Haha, it’s a great book but I don’t think he used electricity? Unless it has been updated with a chapter on robot mowers, gates controlled by wifi, oil tank monitors and driveway light sensors.

so long as your idea of gardening is several hours week not an hour or so it should be ok, with septic tanks remember basically no bleach or antibacterials as it stops them working properly. I would ask re flooding and water drying up in legal terms so written answers not non commital answers but definitely go past as snow melts to see what is happening with the water levels flooding a small part of a lower garden is one thingit being 2" from your back door another.

please do not underestimate how much chaffeuring you will be doing with teens where does school bus go from? when is the last bus back from town? 6pm is fine until 13/14 it is definitely not ok if you are 16-18

Sounds lovely OP and best of luck, but before you buy, ask:

• who owns the 'private lane'? You or (for instance) a local estate owner/farmer? What access rights would you - and anyone else - have over it? Any conditions attached to those? Does the lane lead anywhere (ie will you have passers-by, on foot/bike/horse/car/van) or does it end at 'your' house? Who has the duty to maintain/repair the lane? Potholes are a fact of life in country roads (as I'm sure you know) and private roadworks are calculated in thousands.

• I'm in Scotland, where local councils often require private water supplies to be regularly and compulsorily tested (owners have to pay) , and also demand that specific purification systems are installed. For existing properties serving one family only, rules are sometimes not so rigid ; you'll need to check with the local authority or honest neighbours. However, if you run any kind of business - such as glamping - then your water supplies to the tents/pods will most likely have to meet quite strict public health standards. Ditto sewage disposal from them. (And you'll need planning permission and maybe change of use permission, too.)

• Will your spring provide enough water for your family in dry weather, let alone anyone else?

• Scotland is cold. But so is N. Yorks. I've lived in a house when the water supply pipe regularly froze in winter. We managed by installing big storage tanks near the house. The freeze never lasted that long - a week or so at most. But it caused all sorts of issues as everything thawed, such as airlocks in the pipes. These can be sorted out, of course, but it's one extra thing to consider.

• Previous poster mentioned insulation and general 'warmth factor' of the house. A big issue. Oil heating for old houses can be very, very expensive.

Our hamlet there hadn't been a bus since the mid 80s. Long walk down to a bus stop on the main drag 3 miles away. We did build a new extension utility room. Massive chest freezer, plus big spare fridge in there. The loo off it had a big shower for muddy dogs. Hard floors except in the sitting room on the other side of the hall. Country living is mucky.