Getting Your Rural Land Ready for a Sale – Part 1 of 7

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By Victoria Sandberg, Partner specialising in Commercial Property and Head of Rural

This may seem a strange time to be publishing an article about selling land. In the midst of the Coronavirus lock-down, very few people are realistically looking to buy (although we are still working on those that are able and willing to proceed where possible). However, as most of us now have more spare time on our hands than we would necessarily like, it could be an ideal time to get organised and prepare your land for a future sale, when the lock-down is over and we all return to our “normal” lives. This is the first in a series of blogs about steps you can consider now.

You may not actually have any plans to sell land at present but as the current situation shows, none of us knows what may actually happen in future! It is always a good idea to have everything prepared just in case you either need to sell, or get approached by someone wanting to buy your land. My experience of dealing with rural land owners is that it can take a while for you to actually find all the necessary information, often due to the amount of land involved – which is obviously a lot larger than if you were just selling a town building, for example. Also, rural land has often been held in one family for many generations and so it can be the case that the documents we need to see are stored in a variety of locations and that various people need to be involved in actually providing information. It is therefore sensible to get everything in order before you actually need to sell, so that you are prepared if that time ever comes.

It is also worth pointing out that even if you are not intending to sell the whole of your land and only want to sell a small part, you still need to have all the documents for the whole of the land because it may well have an effect on the part you are selling.

You might also decide you want to take out a loan against your land, in which case the bank will require a vast amount of information and it is essential that you can actually answer all of their queries.

Even if you are not planning to sell, you might well be approached by a developer who comes along with an offer that is just too good to refuse, but in order that you can actually get the best possible deal from that developer, again you need to have all your documents in order.

In the next blog on this topic, I will give tips for how to actually find all the relevant documents!

This blog was originally intended to form part of my talk at Longmores’ annual rural seminar at Knebworth House in March. For obvious reasons it has been postponed. We hope to run the seminar again this year if at all possible. If you would like to be added to the invitation list, please e mail our marketing manager: Charlotte.Hastings@longmores.law.

Please note the contents of this blog are given for information only and must not be relied upon. Legal advice should always be sought in relation to specific circumstances.