[Rhea]

I've got the opportunity to purchase an extra 5 acres of land. The seller wants to keep the entitlement to the SFP and any scheme that replaces it.

I can't decide if that is an issue?

I don't want the entitlement because as I understand it I won't meet the land requirements for the BPS so could not claim under it.

However, it worries me that the seller may retain some rights over what I can do with the land or what schemes/benefits I may potentially be able to make use of myself. The land is currently used for hay with some areas now under bracken. I'm not planning on significantly changing the land use, but I do want to get it back into productive use - possibly sheep, pigs, willow, and some orchard.

Should I be worried about this? My solicitor isn't too clued up on agricultural sales, and reading around this subject is making my head hurt.......

[verdifish]

It shouldn't affect you. He will own 5 acres worth of sfp but will only be able to use it on land he either owns or rents that has no sfp being used on it already .think of it like buying a car with private number plates on, but only the car not number plates are for sale ..when you buy the car you will have no rights over the number plates but the seller will also have no right to use your car but he can and probably will wait and sell the number plates, in some cases for more than he sold the car/ land for !

[Buttermilk]

If you do not qualify under the new scheme anyway then losing the entiltlements would happen even if they came with the land.

[Rhea]

I've never seen it explained that way, thanks. So, the entitlement he is keeping will be used on other land he farms, and there is no real link between that specific field and the entitlement.

If someone in the future wanted to buy the land from us, they wouldn't be put off because we've sold something specific to that land?

[Coximus]

Dont worry - Id did just that with a 4ac field.
The seller claimed the subsidy payments last year and I had to counter sign so they could.

This year Ive purchases SFP entitlements and claimed against this field - I now get the subsidy., The entiltements are totally seperate.

The SFP entitlements the previous owner has are useless now as they need to find 4 acres to claim on....
And under the new system only the ACTIVE farmer can claim, so it nullifies the whole owning subsidies but not farming thing people use to do!

Dont worry, buy the land and then buy your own SFP entitlements to it!

[Penninehillbilly]

Do you have any other land Rhea?
we found out too late how worthwhile it was to claim, summer tenant on 10 acre field claimed on it first without our knowledge, so we can't, and he won't give them up.
when we bought more land next to the house we ended up buying entitlements, paid for themselves 4 times over so far.
But as said, he will need equivelent land for the entitlements to be valid, or they will be taken off him in the new BPS.
I like the explanation using car and number plates, wish someone had explained it to me like that.
 

[Rhea]

The land sale has now gone through, so we have 8 acres in total. Not enough yet to qualify for the BPS, but you never know what might happen in the future.

Thanks for all your help, we were really worried about this and I'm so glad we didn't let something this stupid stop us going ahead