Hello all been reading this forum for a little while, whilst hoping and planning for the opportunity to upgrade from our allotments to renting a field somewhere nearby and expanding into livestock.
Well we found a field about 50 yards walk from our house, located the owner, plucked up courage and knocked on the door. It all seemed to be going well, the field is 2.6 acres and is currently overgrown - after some initial misgivings about planning permission and livestock housing the landlord agreed to rent it to us for £60-00 per month. We have no idea if this is too much, but it's worth that to us - so I guess it isn't really
So far things were going OK.
The day before yesterday we got a letter from the landlord basically asking us to share the cost of drawing up a contract, but not telling us how much it would be. We replied (it turns out the landlord lives next door but one but they only talk to us by letter!) straight away explaining that we wanted to use the land for us, that we may sell some surplus produce and would like a contract of around 3 years to give us chance to plan for stuff with some certainty. We expressed our surprise that the tenant would be involved in paying for a contract the landlod drew up.
Today we have another letter asking for two referees, offering us a one year contract, asking for more detail as to what extent and where we wanted to sell our surplus from and telling us that advice from their land agent was that the tenant paid for the whole cost of the contract - but again not telling us how much it'd be. Is this normal, how can we agree to pay for something when we don't know the costs don't appear to have much input into what goes into it.
We are very keen to take the field, we really want to have a go at producing our own food etc but we don't want to be taken for a ride - can anybody offer any advice as to how we approach things from here?
Topic: Hello (Read 5315 times)
