We made it!

Congratulations on the move.

I'm interested in Agricultural Planning Restrictions. How strict are these? What types of 'agriculture' are acceptable?

I'm thinking of stables, solar energy farm, wild flowers etc.

What actually happens if you never quite get around to 'planting the crops' or buying the animals?

When we bought the piece of land nearly 30 years ago we put up a shed to house 4000 free range hens and then applied for planning permission for a house, which was turned down because we were outside the village planning guidelines.  We then applied to get a house under the Agricultural Occupancy Restriction, which we got after two years of living in a caravan on the site to prove the need,  This limited the OCCUPANCY of the dwelling to someone who is or has recently retired from Agriculture, horticulture or forestry.  Horses do not meet the restriction as they are classed as domestic animals (not entering the food chain) Solar farms would not be included.  In theory (and I have seen it happen) if you then fail to meet the restriction the local council can make you demolish the house at your own expense.......  We gave up with the hens 4 years ago after it became unprofitable - we sold our eggs to Sainsburys under their Freedom Foods Woodland Eggs label - eggs leaving us at 95p a dozen for the largest size and ending up in Saindbury at £4.50+ a dozen.  Once the busines had gone, we were OK as in theory we were then "retired" from farming.  However, AOC places are difficult if not impossible to get mortgages for, even with a profitable business and it knocks the value of the house by anything up to 30%.  We put the farm up for sale with a view to getting the restriction lifted, something involving land agents and the local authority which makes herding cats look easy.  A potential purchaser does not have to prove to us that they can meet the restriction, it is up to them and their Solicitors to explain it all to them fully.  Luckily our purchasers are going to be farming sheep in a very small way and were basically cash, having sold one barn conversion.  We spent two months waiting for them to sell their other barn conversion and then the six week thing kicked in.  Luckily we had a small chain of 5 buyers/purchasers with 4 properties.  Everyone was keen and all the Solicitors involved were excellent.  However, it is not something I wish to repeat in a very long time.

Thanks for that Enks, very interesting.

I wonder what would happen if you bought a house that has been there for years and has an Agricultural Restriction in place but never got around to doing the agriculture?

I wonder what exactly the planners would do?

As you can get the AOC without proving in a very extensive way that you are actually an agricultural business, it would be extremely difficult.  This is why we spent 2 years living in a large mobile home (with three small children) so that they could see
the accounts.  Then there were various reports that we had to get prepared.  However, agriculture has changed beyond all recognition since we did all this back in 1989 and what was a profitable (and hugely enjoyable) back then turned into a financial money
pit in 2012, hence we closed the doors.  We were very sad to do this as we were one of the first free-range eggs units in the whole of the UK to gain Freedom Foods Accreditation

IanH - As far as I am aware you don't have to prove to anyone at the time of purchase that you will be continuing in Agriculture.  However, if you need any kind of mortgage you will certainly struggle to find one, and you should be aware that if you are breaking the terms of the restriction you could potentially find that the council could come after you and make you demolish the house at your own expense if you don't meet it.  In reality this would be unlikely as in all the 25years we lived in our house no-one from the council ever came round and asked to see either the books or the livestock.  As I said before an AOC can knock the value of the property, although when we were in the Cotswolds last year (lovely little CL just outside Stow on the Wold) the owners said they had a similar restriction and in places like that it did'nt knock the value at all.  Leaving the farm is a huge change of lifestyle for us, but keeping chickens meant going away was difficult - you could never go away at Christmas and at certain points in a flock's life you would never dream of leaving them.  More time spent in the van and now that we are getting our heads around a house that is about half the size (its still big - 4 bedrooms - one of which has been "adopted" for OH's hobby of building RC aeroplanes) we are looking forward to the next phase of our lives.  IanH if you are thinking about buying a property with an AOC then get some really good legal advice, because remember you may have to sell it on at some point.