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.

Why do you need an extra acre of land for your children to go outdoors? You have a garden and live on a country park. You're in the middle of nowhere so presumably you can drive too. Do you think children who don't have an acre of land do not get outside to play?

With the price of changing use, I think all you can do is explain that to the neighbours and ask if they'd mind if the kids ran around there sometimes in return for you clearing a patch.

But brambles, while a nuisance in lawns etc, will be easy enough to clear when the time comes. Meanwhile they and the nettles etc are excellent for the soil and the wildlife. So if you don't get anywhere, at least it might help to think that the field in their current state are much better for your local ecosystem and your family's health than living by a working farm.

I knew op was ageist. The only ist still ignored on MN.

It is frustrating OP, friends had the exact same thing wanting to buy a field from some well known royal land owners. The agent came to visit them, then quoted a ridiculous price for a scrubby moorland acre because 'I thought it's what you could afford'. They didn't buy it.

IIWY I would make a formal written offer for what you think is a fair price - perhaps get an independent valuation and add a bit because, truthfully it is worth more to you because it's next door.

Explain that you understand it is not the amount they are hoping for, but that the offer stands if they want to reconsider it later. And then leave it and forget about it, and it will be up to them to stew it over and not you.

Yes, I'm not sure what's best for the land is OPs trump card here. She refers to the land being covered in bramble scrub, nettles and thistles, all of which are also great for insect and bird populations.

you do sound a little obsessed with them hanging onto the land to avoid inheritance tax.
If the land hasn’t been actively used for agriculture in the last few years they would be liable to pay capital Gains tax on any money you payed to them over £3,000. You get taxed one way or another.
I think you have to look at the land wistfully and move on.
Enjoy where you live, read all the treads on here about noisy neighbours and difficult parking and thank your lucky stars that you live in a National Park surrounded by space.

You do pay IHT on it if it's not actually being farmed.

Based on the information provided by @Tortoiselabove, even if she got the land for 10k she couldn’t use it as she would like without paying BNG and getting change of use. The former pushing the price up well beyond what’s she’s prepared to pay and the latter being very unlikely to be granted.

Based on the above, the whole thing sounds like a non starter.

If you want the land, then propose to your neighbours that you each get two independent valuations of the land, and work out an average.

If they don't want to do that, and their price is £60k (which I agree is far beyond market value, notwithstanding planning permission), then that's the end of the matter unfortunately.

People can get very silly about owning small parcels of useless land.

We also live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields.

In our case, there’s a large field between our garden and the main road. Our driveway runs along the edge of it. Within the large field there’s a section that’s roughly 2 acres, owned by a sibing of the land owner. The parent farmer had divided his farm into parcels of land to the 6 adult children (to allow them to build houses on) leaving the oldest son with a majority share.

Most of the siblings have fallen out with each other and the owner of the small parcel next to our land has no right of access to their land anymore as their brother re-organised the field and so the sibling now owns a useless parcel of land that they have no legal access to.

She approached us about having access via our driveway, but we said no as we don’t want a shared access driveway as it will devalue our property. She didn’t offer any money and initially lied to us about the situation, so we don’t want to grant her access anyway. All of the siblings are awkward buggers so the less we have to do with any of them, the better!

Not if it's to an unconnected third party. "Open market value" is default when it's a sale to an unconnected third party.

1. Land Left Unused or Not for Agriculture

If the land is not used for agricultural purposes (e.g., left derelict, used for recreational horse grazing rather than animal rearing, or used for non-agricultural businesses), it will not qualify for APR. In this case, you will likely be liable for standard Inheritance Tax on its open-market value.

From Google AI overview, so check it thoroughly! But sounds like the land would not qualify for Agricultural Property Relief, which is what the owners must be assuming it qualifies for, unless they cleaned it up and got a neighbouring farmer to start grazing something on it.

Agree with you OP that it's very frustrating and just a bit selfish given the condition the land is in and they're fact they're not using it. So sad that they can't see how much of a positive impact selling it to you could have on your kids lives, and make them some money in the process.

I have a neighbour who sold an incredibly small strip of land (I'm talking about 10m2 of land they didn't use at all or even realise was part of their property when they purchased it) to another neighbour so the second neighbour could have better access to their driveway for £5k... The initial valuation was £12k! An acre is 4,047m2 for reference. I know it's not directly comparable, but the point is people can be very greedy and do whatever they can get away with when it comes to land ownership!

£10k would be an absolute steal for an acre of land especially in a national park.

I've recently purchased a slightly larger plot (around 1.7acres) right next to my house (also in a national park) and paid significantly more than £10k an acre.

I'm a bit confused by their negotiation tactics. You say their minimum price is £60k? Have they already negotiated this down from a higher figure? It seems very strange that they'd give you a minimum price straight off the bat without any willingness to negotiate.

Sorry but an acre of farmland on its own is £40k plus! Farmland might be £10k an acre but this is as farmland where people are buying 100 acres or more! It would easily add more than £40k to the value of your house if you could sell it as a pony paddock!

I genuinely do like the ideas of it being good for wildlife etc - and I actually really like the fact that it is basically rewilding itself. And although everyone has fixated on football (which would just involve mowing a small bit), it genuinely makes me happy watching the wildlife in it (which I get to enjoy it and they don't, ironically). But it's just a bit weird when the owners come and grumble about the thistles and collapsing fences and everything else, while at the same time not moving down from £60,000.

This literally contradicts what you said a few posts down. If you know it’s worth more, offer more. If you don’t have more, you can’t afford it and should stop talking about your neighbours as if they don’t deserve their own land because they have the cheek to be in their 60s or 70s.

Take your kids to the park!

You only benefit from agricultural relief if the land is actually being farmed, so not if it’s just sat there doing nothing. There are a few hoops to jump through to demonstrate that it is actually being farmed, you can’t just claim it is either

I sort of assumed £60k was an opening offer, but nope!

No one else agog at the idea that there are children who "love football" whose parents would buy a field for them?

But by the same token, if it's not eligible for IHT relief, it probably won't be eligble for CGT relief either, so they'll have a huge chunk of CGT to pay if they sell the land, so they need a higher price so that they can afford to pay the CGT, which could well be 24%. So CGT on £60k (after annual exemptions and a nominal "cost") could well be £10k or so.

Me keeping my horses there 🤷‍♀️

I don't know if they know this or not. I suppose if they were worried about it, one of the local farmers could graze sheep on it or something, but the fences wouldn't hold them and I imagine refencing costs too much.

Me keeping my horses there 🤷‍♀️

In which case there's no obligation on you to listen to them whining about it. The principles about buyers and sellers apply both ways, so you've every right to point out to them that it's only worth what someone will pay for it.

These people
They don't do anything with the land I approve of so they shouldn't have it.
It's outrageous they are trying to charge us a price they feel the land is worth.

Have you heard yourself?
Wow the entitlement.
It's their land to do whatever they like with and charge whatever they like to sell it.
Or to not sell it if they do want.

If you don't like it, tough. Otherwise cough up.
They are not obliged to sell it because you find it objectionable.