The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: cairnhill on December 20, 2008, 05:18:23 pm
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Can any one help with some advice.
We have been told that to keep pigs on our land we require to be registered with the local authority. Anna called the council who sent out a form which is very misleading ??? as it goes on about business and land transfer.
Can any one give me some advice on how we go about registering as a small holding and will this allow us to keep the pigs etc we want in the future.
FYI, we live in Scotland where the laws are different from England.
Thanks,
John.
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You need to get a County Parish Holding number. You get theis from the Rural Paymenst Agency at the Scottish Govenrnment, I think.
Then you need a herd number to keep pigs - you get thsi from the Animal Health folk - the contact details are on the SG website.
When you move pigs, you need a movement licence, which goes to the local Council.
But the CPH and the herd number are first - when you buy pigs, the seller will need the CPH number for the paperwork.
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Hi,
Just to add to what Rosemary has already said -
If the land you own has been registered previously as an agricultural holding it'll have a number already, it's just a case of finding out what it is. I think SEERAD or Scottish Government office would be able to help.
If however you've bought a portion of land from an existing farm or land which hasn't been used for agricultural purposes before you'll need to fill out the form you were sent in order to get your own holding number.
Hope this helps,
Karen :pig:
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Thanks Rosemary and Karen,
Very helpful information, we will get after it in the new year.
John
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Hi to all
we now have our CPH number, thanks for the advice. We are now wondering if it would be adventageous for us to register as a business and if so would we need to be providing a product or service. We have a lot of fencing and repairs to do before we get any more animals and it would be nice to be able to get the VAT back if we could.
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Hi,
As we're not activly farming at the moment and all the business stuff is still delt with by my dad I can't really give you much advice.
But I'd assume if you registered as a business you'd then have to keep accounts, pay tax & NI etc it may also open a can of worms with planning ::) who could then ask for business plans showing financial viability, impose restrictions on use of buildings etc
It's my understanding (but again, I might be wrong) that unless you make more than £1000 profit in a year you don't need to register for tax & vat.
If you've got a friendly, local accountant it's probably best to have a quick word with them.
Hope that's of some help.
Karen
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You would have to have some sort of business plan to satisfy the Vat people the need to be registered for Vat. You can be registered voluntarily, but please be advised you will need to keep a full set of accounts for this and not easy if you are not that way inclined, a breeze if you know what you are doing. It has it's advantages for reclaiming the Vat, but don't forget you can have a Vat inspection at any time and all accounts records have to be kept for 7 years unless anything has changed.