Posted: Wed Oct 26, 11 8:07 am Post subject: Farm Land Values
Heard on News today, that wealthy investors are buying up Farming Businesses as a way of beating stock market and bank savings rates with the added advantage that farming businesses can be left to next generation tax free. Seemingly it isn't just Tesco that Land Banks. Thoughts?
The Tax Free element was brought in to save genuine working farmers from having to pay 40% tax every generation to keep the farm going, which I feel was a good idea, but with speculators now joining in I can see it will be ended for genuine working farmers.
Yes but there are a lot of them about and it means that land is tied up, unused for no good reason and pushes the price up for the rest of us who are trying to make a living providing quality food to local people..... And breathe....
It's a big problem IMHO. Some land round here was recently sold speculatively for 1.4m, just over 100acres of scrubby acid woody heathland. Been grazed by horses for donkeys years, access appalling, no buildings house or anything, just a series of vaguely linked fields of random shapes. The people using them for their horses were given notice and the land has been unused since then - two years ago. The new owners bought it as an investement, with the shake up proposed to the planning system I daresay they are hoping that some very large 'eco' houses up here would come under the heading of sustainable development and be worth a couple of million each. Houses round by me start at 1m, you can imagine they love me and my mobile homes
Just another consequence of people paying near to cost price for their food & other grown produce. Some might say that all this 'waste' land is good though as it isn't being grazed & is left for wildlife.
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