[YoungRasher]

Hi. We've recently purchased some land and it came with entitlements. My solicitor is dragging his feet and tells me he has it under control. Can someone tell me who I can contact to find out what I need to do to claim the entitlements.

[SallyintNorth]

We have an agent do our SFP for us as they are so insanely complicated, so my knowledge isn't as full as it would be if I had to do it myself.  Although if I did have to do it myself, I would be writing this on the prison computer as I would have long ago taken it out on hapless employees of Defra / RPA. 

The entitlements for a given year are applied for in the May for ground you expect to be farming by October (or it might be December) that year.  The amount is set at the end of September ('set' because it varies according to the exchnage rate, unless you elect to have it paid in Euros) and paid sometime between December and February, unless there's a really big problem.

If your contract stipulated that the purchase price included the SFP for 2012, then your vendor hopefully claimed for the payment in May and your solicitor is now hopefully arranging for the payment to be sent to you in due course.  (My experience is that this will be an excellent excuse for the RPA to delay making your payment until July 2013, at least.  And then get it wrong.  Which you won't be able to figure out or justify, as they never give sufficient information about what it is they are paying when they pay it.)

If your contract stipulated that the entitlements would be transferred but did not specifically mention the 2012 payment, then your solicitor should be organising for the RPA's records to be updated so that when you make your claim in May 2013, you and the RPA both think that you farm that ground.

I hope that helps.

[YoungRasher]

Thats a great help, Thanks. The seller only stated that the payments would be transfered. Unfortunately nothing was mentioned about the 2012 payment. Its currently being sorted out by the solicitor but every time I ask about it I get the feeling its dropped to the bottom of his to do pile. which seems to happen a lot.
The lands is also in an entry level stewardship scheme for low nitrogen. I've yet to get the details back for that also.

Thanks again.

[FiB]

It might be worth popping into your local office - if you can track down where it is!!!!  Although the schemes are near unfathomable and paper work and systmes mind bogglingly inefficient  and the internet info confusing - my local office in Dolgellau is populated by the most friendly and helpful people in the world.  I spent an afternoon in there a few months back whilst they checked if anyone else was claiming on my land, sorted out some errors on their system and told me what I need to do next (wait till february till the new forms are out).  Good luck, F

[SallyintNorth]

The ELS scheme is completely different; it needs to go through a formal process to be transferred and I think the next payment is likely to be November. So you want to get onto that post haste.

And yes, as Fi says, if you can get to meet with a real person, you'll get on way better than trying to do it by phone.

Unless your solicitor does hundreds of these, I'd suggest you would be well advised to get someone experienced in these matters - the estate management arm of your local auction company, for instance - to sort it out for you or at least help you.  They'll spend far less of your money than your solicitor will 

[henchard]

Unfortunately (as I understand it) the entitlements will not give you 'a golden ticket' for the new scheme when it is introduced (2014?) unless you had made a claim in 2011.

If you do consult someone with in depth knowledge you may want to ask them about this as well.

[Red]

We have a land agent who is great and makes sure we are above board with all our paperwork and lets us know about anything that we might be interested in or entitled to - its worth paying the fee's!

[YoungRasher]

Thanks. Thats all great advice. which is exactly what I wanted.