Just need to vent - neighbour wants £60,000 for an acre of land

[livelaughlambada]

Urgh, I just want to vent. We love our home - it's in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields. We would really like to buy one acre of land. It's owned by some people who don't farm and don't do anything with it. Land around here is probably £10,000 an acre for farmland. They want £60,000 for the acre. We just don't have it. And if we did, we couldn't possibly justify buying it - as in even if we could borrow the money, there is other stuff that we would spend it on first that is much more 'necessary'. I don't think they believe us, but it is just what it is. One of our kids loves football and would love to play on that land. It's just such a shame that there isn't a way around it. I know that it's absolutely their right and I also know it would add value to our house to buy it (although we will not be moving ever, so that is a long way off - and we just can't spend £60,000 on land that we might actually just have to sell off before the house one day). These people don't do anything at all with the land -- they have about 20 acres and it's just getting covered with brambles and crap (not in a nice rewilding way - just actual crap they've dumped there). They come here maybe once a month. I think their logic is that it would add £60,000 in value to our house (possibly true, I have no idea, but we will not move until the kids have left home and that's a couple of decades away). The MOST annoying thing is that they're somewhere in their sixties/seventies and have told us they don't want to sell because you don't pay inheritance tax on land. So it's worth just having it sit and rot rather than anything else. It's just SO ANNOYING.

Wow, first world problems or what? 😂

Where I am an acre adds between £200-£300k to the value of a house. How much will it add to yours?

Standard Mumsnet ageism.

Pony paddocks near here cost £100,000+ I think they are bigger than an acre. If they have a tap for water this significantly adds to their value.

I don't think an acre is needed for a child's football pitch.

Why would they stew though?

For an awful lot of people (especially those who own lots of land) £10,000 is just not an amount that matters. It’ll just get added to one of the investment accounts, then one day go to the children.

I exchange for whatever that’s grown to the children lose an acre.

I was offered “above market” for a watch that I’ve promised my son for when he’s grown up. It was about £10k over “fair” but I turned it down and didn’t then stew.

So it will be okay for you to own the land and not do anything with it, once your kids have outgrown it, and you have no more use for it, but it’s not okay for them to own the land and not do anything with it right now because you want to use it?
So in 10 years when someone then wants to buy the land off you for a pittance, for their children to use to kick a ball about, or for their dog to run free in, you would sell it for that pittance would you? Out of the goodness of your heart? I don’t think so!
You sound very entitled and are trying to justify why they should sell the land to you, when they obviously don’t need, nor want to sell it. Which is their prerogative.
Land is a commodity at the end of the day and if your pockets aren’t deep enough, tough luck.

I can feel the vibrations of both a lower lip wobbling and a foot stamping, and I think a certain person needs some time to calm down and read the room before her tone deafness sends more shockwaves through the site.

It being next to your house is what gives it that value.

You don't want to farm it. You essentially want to add to your garden. If it was no use for that because it wasn't near your house maybe it would only be worth 10k but it isn't.

At the end of the day they are not required to sell it to you. It is what it is.

Oh well, not a goer then!

Do you know if it’s green or brown?

So you didn't think to mention that rather relevant point in your OP?

There would be absolutely nothing to stop you buying it and then selling it on for well over £100k++ as a building plot.
You can squeeze a lot of houses on an acre of land.

You’re being quite shortsighted and unrealistic imo.

You can’t say you would never do that or that you wouldn’t sell up completely, because you don’t know what the future holds, and if you did you would have absolutely no control over what the new owners would do with it.

Our local farmer wants 30,000 for about 10 foot out along the perimeter of our garden. If he wanted 60k for an acre, I’d snap his hand off.

Op my children managed to grow up very well with just a small garden. I didn’t covet anyone else’s land.
Your neighbour can ask however much he wants for his land. You can choose not to buy it and get on with your life.

Not in the middle of nowhere.

Even if it was going on "hope value" (ie land without planning permission but hopefully able to gain planning permission) would be £30k-£100k, and the upper end would be prime land. No developer is paying a premium for a single acre.

For just shrubland/grassland (not arable land), you're talking less than £10k unless it's in a high demand area where land is at a premium.

The OP is wilfully ignoring that buying a piece of land and using it as a garden is a change of use, however you spin it. Deciding you aren’t going for a useage change doesn’t stop it from being precisely that. For all the seller knows you’ll apply for a use change and then request to build on it too. Which is why it’s 60k.

It must be a greenfield site. I highly doubt it has been previously developed.

And that's where you'd agree to have restrictive covenants and clawbacks in the deeds, ie the usage being garden land and changing to anything else would result in the original owners having a clawback of X%

In that case, say you'll get a valuation on it, and agree to having some restrictive covenants on it, ie no change of use or development, and if there is they can add a clawback so they'd get a percentage of the uplift in value.

Highly unlikely to get planning in a national park, but still definitely worth more that £10k as a pony paddock.

@livelaughlambada remember whatever they sell they will have to pay capital gains tax on, so won’t be a full £60k going into their pockets.

What I've frequently seen is house buys a section of field next to garden. Then fences it off, then over several years plants some trees, then hedges, mows the grass etc etc. Then after 10 years apply for a CLEUD changing the use from agricultural to a garden.

I've seen it done two or three times.

I assumed OP meant they don’t want to sell the bulk of their land for possible tax reasons but selling just one acre is neither here nor there.

Why on earth do you keep going on and on about how old these people are?

Bloody hell, it's their stuff, I hope they enjoy it for many years to come.

OP you sound unhinged. It's not your land, you're not entitled to it, and it doesn't matter what you or anyone else STRONGLY believe is the best use of it. The value/ inheritance tax etc is completely irrelevant, it's literally their land to do as they wish with. When you are in your 70s and some entitled fucker next door decides that they are more deserving of your property (the one you've owned for years) because they have young kids and it has more bedrooms or whatever, would you sell it for whatever they wanted to pay? I think not ....

Hello, we had a similar situation albeit about a small piece of land. They wanted £15,000 for the full plot, we ended up paying about £4000 for half of it. It was basically a bit of land for a little garden and somewhere to park the car. It took a while because they had wild expectations about the value, we were fortunate that I think they wanted the money.

I think a good idea would be to offer to rent it for £1000 a year for 10 years? Then presumably your children might be of age where they’re not bothered, and you’ve had your use out of it. You could start off at £500 a year to see if they would bite.

Sorry you’re getting such a kicking on here.