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.

But you've got a garden, your children don't need to stay indoors, what happens if you buy the land and the site survey says its too boggy to play on or it's an ssi, why can't you just use the space you've got.

this. because her kids are more important than ANYTHING

Extending your garden by an acre is a massive improvement. I think the only sensible way forward would be to discuss either your husband what you could afford and put it to them. They may accept £50,000.

Market dynamics. You want it more they they want/need to sell it. This is literally how supply and demand works. They know what they have is extremely valuable (to you) and have no need to sell. Can't see how you get it for less tbh.

This is a first world problem if I ever read one. I'm sure your children will manage without an acre of land to themselves to play football.

Maybe you could ask the neighbour if you could tidy it up and the boys could play there whilst she retains ownership?

and apparently can't leave the house unless it's to do a bit of running around in a whole acre of land procured for less than market value because they deserve it.

I think the problem is that the OP is “stuck” on the concept that the land is only worth £10k when in reality (due to plot size and the relative increase in value of their own property) it’s actually probably far, far nearer in value to what the owners as asking.

Her position/frustration appears to stem from the owners being greedy over land they don’t use or maintain.

However, the reality is she is likely expecting them to sell to her at a price that makes no sense for the current owners to do so.

So the start point has to be a realistic valuation from which the OP can decide if they can afford or not.

What the current owners do or don’t do with the land is irrelevant or if she thinks she can put it to better use. In the end it all comes down to what it’s worth, what the owners will sell for and what she can afford.

I've said throughout that I know it's worth more than £10k. I've also said several times that we can't and won't pay their minimum prices (60K). Can you not see the difference between those two figures?

BNG can really slow down a planning application. We sold our house/land with "old" pp but our sale fell through so we had to reapply for pp under the new BNG rules. It has been a nightmare and overran by six months before approval. Some areas are rumoured to have a much worse waiting time. I believe the rules are changing again in July for smaller gardens, but ours totals an acre so everything is scrutinised.

An acre of brambles? Ha ha ha. An acre of valuable habitat more like.

It’s not farmland to you, it’s amenity land. Hence the higher value.

I agree with those suggesting you have your own property valued without the land and with the land. I suspect the owners of the land think, your property will be worth considerably more with the land. It will also give you some idea, how much the land is actually worth too. If the price increase to your property isn't massively significant, then it might give you a negotiation point, and the owners may then realise the land isn't worth what they believe.

If that fails, then unfortunately as frustrating as it may be, you will have to accept and respect the owners decision.

I'm not stuck on it being worth £10k - I just know that is what it would be worth if we ever had to sell. They won't move down from £60k. I am frustrated by the size of the gap. Hence the venting. I am annoyed because they came up here a few days ago grumbling about how many nettles and thistles and brambles there were.

OP

This happened to us when we asked the local farmer to sell us an acre adjoining our garden. DH was outraged and said no way we're paying that for an acre of land, but we very much wanted it and it would add value to our property, so in the end we gritted our teeth and stumped up. I'm very glad we did, 8 years ago now - it has made a huge difference to the enjoyment of our garden.

Leaving it alone to let the wildlife take over is actually known to be far better for it than you mowing it and turning it into a football pitch!

I'm sure it would! But we just can't spend £60k. It's that simple. I know it would enhance our lives, but it just is what it is. I'm glad you managed it though - hope it's beautiful and happy-making.

Sorry I missed this.

It’s a very important consideration you are right to flag.

I don't think it's me who is having trouble "seeing" what the situation is to be fair.

I can see of course that £10k and £60k are disparate, and I can also see that just because you've decided you want something belonging to someone else, you feel that you should have it for the price that you want to pay for it.

And that is not how it works, when negotiating for anything. I can see that you appear to be stamping your foot because you feel it's not fair that you can't have what you want for the price you think it's worth. I can see that if you won't pay the price that the vendor has decided is their minimum that you cannot have what you want no matter how much you think you deserve it. And I'm not sure what Fortnite has to do with it, other than if you're having bother getting your kids off it I don't think an acre of land is going to do the trick. Maybe that's the dream.

What's wrong with that is you have a garden for DC to be outside, you bought the house, you choose the garden.

your neighbours land is theirs, you have no right to it just because they're in their 70's.

maybe someone in their 20s that's homeless could come & live in your house, as they're younger than you & don't have a house.

There really aren't. If you're thinking IHT, the charge is on the value by which the estate is reduced (broadly speaking) so the full value of the land would still be caught. If it's CGT, then if they are making a bargain on non-arm's length terms, it may well be caught by TCGA, section 17, so that the whole value of the land is encompassed.

There clearly not bothered
your being unfair because there not just selling the land they are selling the potential

there was a field nearby sold for grazing as only access was a single footpath
it was sold the people who bought it it knocked there house down and used that for accessed it was sold as a building plot for numerous houses for considerable more

@livelaughlambada
I notice your other thread is about people of over 65 hanging onto their properties and pricing them unrealistically.

We’re buying a bungalow with two acres of land (not garden) and it’s about 100k more than bungalows of a similar size in our village with no land, so £60k sounds about right for around here (NW).

I'd think about what you'd actually be happy paying for it. £15k? The valuation with and without is worth doing. Then approach them with an offer. They may stew on it a while, but you might be surprised. If they're confronted with evidence of a realistic valuation it might encourage them to rethink.

Just to add that we prevaricated for 8 years in buying some land adjacent to our property. In that time it had tripled in value!

Wd did end up buying it but kicked ourselves that we hadn’t bought it when it was first offered.