The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Buildings & planning => Topic started by: discodan on January 20, 2014, 08:25:54 pm
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Hi, can anyone help me with the complications behind an ' uplift clause' on a plot of land. Is there any useful links..? Or can some one explain how I can work round it. I'm not here to spin a quick buck. I'm here for the long haul and do not intend on selling the land. Just want to understand fully before progressing any further.
Thanks
Dan
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Just googled it to confirm what I knew - http://www.chapplins.co.uk/Newsarticlepage.aspx?articleReference=102223&provider=3&feedId=nnc2 (http://www.chapplins.co.uk/Newsarticlepage.aspx?articleReference=102223&provider=3&feedId=nnc2)
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Uplift clauses are an iniquitous way of having two bites of the cherry. I wouldn't touch any land owned by someone who was trying it on like this. You may have no intention of selling up but sometimes circumstances dictate what we do and you would have to pay back this weasel!
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I think the only time it is justified is if you are selling something as grazing land and it's your entire view and the purchaser swears they want it for grazing and they only pay grazing price for it. In other words, the uplift isn't there so they [size=78%]share in the money made, it's set so that the land remains unspoilt. For that to work, the uplift percentage would need to be set so high that any development would be unprofitable. Preferably also retaining a ransom access strip of land. [/size]
The greedy ones I think are ones where it is set at a level that would make development still just about doable, but mean the original owner trousers a large part of the benefit with no work, esp if the site is not affecting their own home etc. that's just greed and I wouldn't enter into a deal to reward someone like that.
In response to the OP, these clauses are legal and fairly simple to enforce by the original owners so would suggest if the terms are not acceptable from your perspective, try to negotiate it down or away or walk away and find land without such a clause.
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To me they are overage clauses. I bought land from next door and refused to have one. The "I'd like to sell my land at full market value now but still have an interest in the profits of it in the future" concept is just bizarre. I don't intend to develop but, given I paid full whack for it, it's nothing to do with my neighbour what I do lawfully with it in the future.
They are increasingly common, mostly pointless because the land has little development potential and hopefully not a deal breaker. If they are concerned about development, put in a restriction against it, don't try and grab a bit of it!
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Thanks guys it is as I thought. But can any one confirm that if I was not to sell the land would I still be liable to pay a percentage of the increased price if I got planning permission for my own home?
I think I will try negotiating with the vender any way and try and get the clause removed bit just want up investigate every angle.
Thanks again
Dan
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I'm no expert but I'd have thought uplift only came into play on sale, as until then there are no actual proceeds.
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I'm no expert but I'd have thought uplift only came into play on sale, as until then there are no actual proceeds.
It depends on the terms of the clause in the uplift agreement.
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its quite a greedy selfish clause.
when we move we are keeping the land in the hope that oneday the kids - or grandkids can sell it for building. that means we have a big investment now with very little returns for what could be 50 years or so.
so the uplift clause sounds great to me :roflanim: the dosh but no investment.
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Make enquiries about getting planning permission before you sell - I made a big mistake and moved down here before applying for planning, with the result that my ex neighbours took every opportunity to find reasons to thwart the process - like telling planning they saw rare plant species, badgers, or bats, or red squirrels - all of which meant I had to get more and more surveys done. There were none of these animals/plants but it cost me a lot of money proving so. If I had still lived there my architect said they wouldn't have dared say these things as I would have faced them with it.
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Hi All :wave:
We used to live close to Stourbridge, West Midlands, just about every plot of land locally that we looked at had an uplift (or similar) clause.
Our estate agent, who was worth every penny, talked me through the basics of uplift. If you are planning on a field to farm approach, then as soon as you get planning permission to build a property the uplift comes into force, the value of the land has increased, so the seller gets a free payday.
Consequently we avoided uplifts,
Having said this Scottish Law is different to English law, so what we encountered may not be appliciable in this case.
SV
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The land I have recently bought has an uplift clause on it, I can build any agricultural building on it but if it was to be developed for housing the uplift is 50%. This is only applicable for 15 years. It wasn't a problem for me as the village development plan prohibits building on this field for at least the next 10 years. I would not let an uplift clause put me off but would suggest a time limit.
My reasoning behind the 15 years and not 25 which I was told is the norm is that the farmer is approaching retirement age and if his heirs decided to bu&&er off to Australia or somewhere I would not be happy paying an uplift to whoever bought the farm, there was also mention of a ransom strip during negotiations but that was quickly dropped when I said "oh good that means you will be responsible for the roadside fence then".
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Hi Anne
Like the bit with the care of fence :trophy: nice one
I will remember that.
SV
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We negotiated to buy a property with land that had 10 pages of contract specifying such a clause. I argued that with such in place we would never be able to sell the land, so therefore we would not buy it. The clause was removed.