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.

Sadest part is it’s yet more agricultural land falling into the wrong hands. We are losing our farmland at a great rate of knots because things like this price farmers out the market. With the world as unstable as it iis we may well need that land for food sooner than we think

Farmer in front of me was paying £200 rent per acre annually. I’m assuming it was a long-standing arrangement because that strikes me as a crazy bargain.

I think the Op is getting an uncalled for kicking. A thread on another forum will tell you it is about £10k per acre for land. Yes, it makes a difference if it’s attached to a property, but if it’s middle of nowhere and the owners aren’t using it (why not? They could be earning an income by renting it out) then I can empathise with the Op being frustrated at their refusal. I’d offer 20k and see what they say, that would make it more worth their while. She could also mention overage (someone called it uplift earlier in the thread). We had that removed from a property we bought, there’s no way we’d get planning or want to build on it, but afaiac, once you sell, you shouldn’t have a hold over the buyer forever more.

Are you a communist?

The only relevant point is that the owners don’t want to sell for less than £60k.
Wouldn’t matter a damn if op could somehow manage to prove it was only worth tuppence.

You say you think the owner is getting an uncalled for kicking. I’ve read her spiel and I’m thinking she is so silly thinking that seventy year old people are stupid and that their land should have her dear little Timmy and Tommy should be allowed to play football on a boggy piece of land. We are not always seventy, we have all struggled in life to get where we want, even those who have inherited land have struggled at points and could have easily of sold it.

Land can be drained and houses built on it, and if the op is that convinced the owners want to sell, if she doesn’t buy it, it can go to auction and it will sell to the person with the deepest pocket on the day. Maybe, she should look around her and sell off a few possessions so her children can appreciate a field whilst they are still children, instead of bad mouthing a couple of pensioners and printing nonsense about what they may/may not have said about inheritance taxation - they maybe treating her with the same respect she is affording them

If they’re retired I kind of think it’s fair that it’s their only way of making money!

Also I’d guess to rent it out there’s need to be some extra insurance? And a promise of upkeep

Presuming you mean 'wouldn't' here otherwise the land purchase (and the thread) is pointless..

Why not find one of your 10k acres and buy that? Does it have to be directly next to the house?

This. Rent it.

OP is actually not sure how old they are. She said somewhere 60/70s, possibly in their 50's for all we know!

Who on earth do you think you are? You are entitled to no-one else’s property. If you want it, pony up the cash. If you don’t, tough luck when someone else buys it and you will have no say whatsoever over what they do with it. There are many things worse to live next door to than brambles.

Good idea. It’s worth asking.

What you call "in the middle of nowhere" would describe many properties "in prime horse owning country". My experience is that horse owners will always pay over the odds to get a small parcel of land (which don't come up often) close to a domestic property in good riding country.

So you are angry that you can’t afford it? I am sure there are lots of things you can’t afford, no?

@livelaughlambada Valuations are not as simple as it being farm land. It won’t be when it’s attached to your garden! It will be a big garden. It’s you who sound like a chancer! How much more would a house with a big garden cost you? £60,000 more? I would not sell 1 acre next to a house/garden for £10k either. Its proximity and value to your property makes it worth far more.

if it’s middle of nowhere and the owners aren’t using it (why not? They could be earning an income by renting it out)

“Why not?”

As if the owners need to justify why they aren’t using it in a way someone else approves of??

On the info provided, no reason to presume it'd be an attractive rental proposition anyway. The main draw for OP, who doesn't want to rent it, is that it's attached to her house. Maybe there's not much interest in what's described as inconveniently located bramble scrub at the end of a lane.

Such a good idea. You could sell the idea to them as you would be keeping the land in good order for them. i am wondering about "change of use". Is it classified as agricultural land at present? if so, do they need to use it to grow a crop? They may be concerned about planning issues of that kind, so maybe you can reassure them in some way.

I like the suggestion of asking to rent a small parcel of it. Maybe come up with the price yourselves before asking so you know what you'd be comfortable with, and suggest that.

Otherwise if they never use it really, would they let your son play football there without any sort of charge? You could just ask them if that was an option.

Just negotiate with them. It’s a straightforward commercial discussion, nothing else. Pull together your evidence (hard evidence of other recent land sales and what they sold for). Prepare a counter offer - something like £15k and go from there.
For some reason, in this country, we really don’t like haggling over price - in other countries, they wouldn’t think twice.

I think you have to get the ‘ farm land ‘ pricing out your head . Land is so scarce now it’s expensive . To give you an idea there is 5 acres on my road up for £395k . It does have planning permission for 5 stables and a ménage but these aren’t built and would be an additional significant cost to the land . Another parcel of an acre with an Abnb cabin is up for
£ 650k . when I bought my land I was told to forget what farm land prices were and bid what it meant to me .

Diamonds. Just a little piece of stone that can be found if you dig in the dirt. Why would anyone pay more for them than for a bit of quartz?

Those sellers asking for tens or even hundreds of thousands of them for the tiniest pebble, how dare they?

I’d counter that by adding 20% on to the original offer.

Same. I'm certainly up for a bit of haggling, but as that poster says, it's a commercial discussion.