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RuralScene Issue 6 : ARTICLE 2

Extracts from A Rural Valuer’s 2010 Notebook

By Michael Hamilton FRICS FAAV

By the time these notes are in print 2010 will have gone and a new year will be in focus, hopefully turning out to be another year of interesting and varied instructions on all sorts of matters ranging from agricultural land sales, development land options and collaboration agreements, rent reviews, new lettings, succession tenancy applications, telecoms, wind and solar farms and valuations for many varied purposes.

Development Land

Few new residential development sites came forward for active marketing during 2010 and deals often took a long time to reach a successful conclusion, demonstrating purchasers’ reluctance to commit, often due to funding difficulty. Towards the end of the year, however, it was noticeable that some larger developers were more actively seeking opportunities and were offering option or promotion agreements to owners of suitable sites. These agreements are complicated, often long term and always expensive. Unless funded by the developers they are unlikely to find favour with landowners.

Succession Tenancies under The Agricultural Holdings Act 1986

We have been involved in a number of cases during the year where close relatives of the deceased tenant applied to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for direction giving entitlement to a tenancy under section 39 of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. The process for the applicant requires the presentation of an extensive range of documentation and information to the Tribunal in support of the application. It is, inevitably, a drawn-out process and is likely to take many months. Parties to the hearing are always encouraged to try to reach agreement prior to a Tribunal hearing.

Agricultural Tenancies and Rent Reviews

The summer and autumn of 2010 saw a dramatic increase in wheat and oilseed rape values which has resulted in a wave of rent review notices served under both the Agricultural Holdings Act and Agricultural Tenancies Act providing the basis for review in 2011. Valuers, landlords and tenants will be watching the market closely during the autumn of 2011. A number of tenancy matters arose during the year including retirement issues, land swaps and end of tenancy claims and counter claims and, indeed, arguments about what constitutes an agricultural tenancy!

Valuations

Instructions to our professional department for valuations and reports were a feature of 2010 and a number of large and involved valuations of farms were undertaken for a variety of reasons, particularly family division, Inheritance Tax (probate) and matrimonial purposes. It was noted that few valuations are now straightforward and require in depth knowledge and understanding of legal issues not to mention Single Farm Payment Entitlements.

Compulsory Purchase and Compensation

There were very few schemes in our region that involved compulsory purchase in 2010, although for the last two or more years there has been ongoing work relating to the proposed major improvements to the A14, which included negotiations ranging from storage sites required during the construction period to borrow pits for the extraction of suitable clay material to build flyovers and embankments. Following the recent decision to shelve the road improvements this work has come to an abrupt end and it is unlikely that anything further will happen in 2011.

Single Farm Payment

Our Rural Team at Cambridge and Ely helped clients complete and submit a large number of SP5 forms prior to the 15th May and dealt with the many queries that always seem to arise thereafter. Ongoing mapping problems by the Rural Payments Agency were an unwelcome part of this work!

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy projects came very much into focus during the year and undoubtedly will play an increasing role in rural professional work in 2011 and beyond. Many clients are now receiving approaches from companies wishing to develop small and large scale photovoltaic (PV) sites which generate electricity from sunlight and to a lesser extend solar thermal (TH) which captures the suns heat for heating purposes.

The current rush of interest in these energy resources results from the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) introduced in April 2010 that offers generous terms to encourage renewable electricity generation.

A number of small and large scale opportunities will be of interest and available to land owners, and tenants with suitable sites or buildings.

There was further well publicised wind farm activity in the region during the year with some success and failures by operators.

One thing is for certain, wind farms will continue to generate fierce debate nationally and we expect a number of planning applications to be hotly debated on a local level in the coming months.

Cheffins Rural departments based at Cambridge and Ely are well placed to provide advice upon a full range of professional issues and can be contacted on 01223 213777 and 01353 662405.