I read the first article on the front page this morning about rent reviews in Scotland.  When did the practice of a third party land agent enter the picture?  Seems parasitic to me.  Landlords and tenants ought to negotiate directly with each other.

Land agents have been around for hundreds of years! Tennants have seldom dealt direct with large land-owners.

Although it is quite hard to distinguish them from leeches: between Masonic agents and 3yr FBTs, the UK rental market is not a nice place to be, unless you have a "traditional" tennancy, in which case you have a license to print money,

Our landlord has an agent, and he in turn has a "pup" to do all the mundane every day running about. The landlord's agent is a very experienced man who can tear the tenants apart at will and bully the individual tenant. So we, as tenants, have an agent to do important things like rent revues and the like.

I, as a tenant, am not that "up" on tenant law and right of way laws, so it is essential that we have and agent in order to combat any bullying landlords and their agents.  

ah land agents or as they are better known in these parts ba**##*s, they been on the go for years saves the landlord the cost and hassle of letting, looking after legal side and collecting the money all for what is a very reasonable percentage i'm sure!

and with the advent of shorter leases there becoming a greater problem i think, using the threat of there's always somebody happy to pay a few pounds an acre more than a occupying tenant is.

having experienced farming in that sector a few years ago i would not touch it with a barge poll! not easy juggling short term lease with long term farming viability and land agent stickin their nose in ever few months and gettin out with healthier balance sheet than start of lease! lol

did manage it but glad to be out of it and back in to ownership, or should i say bank debt?!   

Kansas, here in Iowa we have farm managers all over. We rent most of our farms from them. They claim to help the old ladies from getting ripped off by farmers, but I think its the other way around. They have also made it so you can't get more than a one year lease here either. They also control land owned by trust, investment holdings, and kids who got the farm when family died and don't know a thing about it. So we just deal with it. It makes it easy to get tile work or fence fix with out having to explain to someone who dosen't know what they are though.

Kansas, you are dead right, parasite is correct term for land agents..

they live off their hosts, landlord and tenant, until they are dead ,when they wriggle away to infest another host. They care not a jot for the long term viability of the farm or its occupants.

they engage in projects like tree felling, which will yield no revenue to the owner, but will give him a big commision..

they are the ones who oppose long term leases, as they are then redundant.

Patrick Sellar was the epitome of the cruel factor, burning houses with folk still in them during the clearances.

He had arranged to lease the land himself for sheep, hence the haste and brutality of the strathnaver clearance.

We in britain still work under land tenure more suited to the time of robin hood.

If you go back to your forebears, most of them left britain for the states to escape the agents, the rack rent, and the wholesale theft of improvements.

Mrs. KF and I watched a movie some weeks ago called "Gosford Park".  It was about a murder during some sort of gathering on an estate.  If it was accurate, it was amazing how little the wealthy in England could do for themselves, right down to loading their shotguns, someone else had to do it.  It isn't surprising someone else has to negotiate their rental agreements.  Just another middleman.

Glasshouse, it did become very clear to me why folks left Europe.  I am afraid we are becoming what they left, but we have had a pretty good run, and might pull it off to keep things going down the right track another 50-100 years yet.  My great great granddad came over with his parents and nephew when he was 23, making landfall in New York City April 24, 1873.  For all practical purposes they were penniless.  They got jobs laying track for the railroad, came to Kansas in 1879. By the time he died in 1942 he had 320 acres, not bad for starting out a peasant in Nottinghamshire.  Had my ancestors stayed in Britain and Europe, I doubt I would have anything at all today.

The better story though comes from my Mennonite ancestors on my mothers side.  They came from Russia in 1874 in a mass migration.  They actually had a good life, Catherine the Great had made them a good deal if they would settle in western Russia in the mid 1700s, 100 years tax free and exempt from conscription.  They settled near the changing Polish border coming from eastern Germany, and for all that time maintained their German language.  When it became clear they were going to be forced to serve in the Russian military(they are strict pacifists) they left their comfortable homes and good farms.  They came across Europe by covered wagon(this is what I have read in our family history) my great grandfather was born on that trip.  They left from Liverpool on the SS City of Montreal, lived a few years in Ohio and then came to Kansas, bringing Turkey Red wheat with them.  Each family lived in a dugout on 40 acres, a far cry from their brick houses in Russia, and two families shared one milk cow.  But by the time my great granddad died in 1957, he had been able to buy 160 acres for each of his 4 sons, and given the money equivalent to each of his 4 daughters...the few that stayed in Russia got slaughtered by Stalin in the 1920s, during the forced collectivizations.

kansas, thats a very interesting story. you should be on that programme; who do you think you are.?

that was a lucky escape from stalin. i have read a few books on the deportation of the kulak farmers, and the estimated 30 odd million who died of hunger as a result.

were your english ancestors evicted small farmers? they must have had some cash to make the trip.

The Brit ancestors who came in 1873 were always listed as "sawyers" on the census from 1841 to 1871.  The story has always been that my 2 great grandfather won 125 pounds in a foot race and that paid his way, and he worked and sent money to bring the others over, but when I found the ships list he and his nephew were together, and his mother was a little further down, and no mention of his father, I assumed I simply couldn't find him, but it is possible he came over first, I just don't know.  It must not have been that expensive to make the trip, because so many who did were the poorest in Europe.  My 2 great granddad married a daughter of a Brit who came over in 1847 with his entire family, his grandfather had a farm at Quadring and died in 1846, I read the will, the estate was split equally between 4 children, I don't believe the farm was very big, but big enough I guess for the trip over, and to buy a farm in Illinois near Chicago.  After doing some digging I figured out the farm they bought was the farm of my 4 great grandmothers sister, and they moved back to England, I guess not everyone who came to America stayed here.  I think it was tough country, when the Griffins came over in 1847 they lost their youngest son on the ship and he was buried at sea, then in 1853 a cholera epidemic killed my 4 great grandmother and both daughters, leaving just my 3 great grandfather, his father and brother. 

It becomes apparent to me when I read some of the British and European press that have a problem understanding how we think in America that these stories that have been handed down through the generations of the problems our ancestors faced, and the oppression they left has left a mark on many of us, and makes us think somewhat differently than the cousins we left across the ocean.  It took guts to leave everything you knew and go halfway around the world to unsettled country, I think this bred a fiercely independant type of people.  We are losing that each generation I am afraid, won't be long before we are normal. 

the problem with the uk is that we lack a written constitution.

Your declaration of independence ,based i believe, on the declaration of arbroath is a fine statement, and sets you yanks apart from us forelock tugging downtrodden subjects.

i think i prefer the yankee "normal" to the uk version.

Good story Kansas,

Plenty of my family left here for America/Canada in the mid 1800s (Minesota, Wisconsin). They didnt leave because they were poor. Rather the usual problems caused by being in a family of 7 sons - not enough land. Its why we all dream of emigration! We will always be a nation with expensive land,, whereas the US suited their system of extensive cattle breeding with plentiful and inexpensive land, Some came back but most stayed.

tesla, you are right, the poorest people could not emigrate, they became industrial labourers when they left the land. only those with a little money were able to go.

the scottish system of paying wages at the end of six months ironically gave these men the ability to pay their fare to nz , australia etc.

a previous tenant of this farm tells an interesting story of 19th cent farming.

he started off with a lot of money, improved the farm greatly, but the landlord put up the rent so much, he had to leave, and eventually was ruined deliberately by another landlord.

in contrast , one of his workers left for the usa, where he became an owner occupier. too late in life, he realised what he should have done.

glasshouse:

the problem with the uk is that we lack a written constitution

I have a totally open mind on the question of a UK written Constitution but am interested in what would be in it, and what would be left out.

Can you imagine for example 'the right to bear arms,' 'the right to refuse entry to one's property' by the 168 bodies currently empowered to enter you home without your permission.

Would it contain provisions to allow us to resist having our children being taken on the suspicion of social workers, or to prevent the authorities assuming that we all have paedophile tendancies until we pass tests and inspections devised by suspicious bureaucrats. Would it contain provisions to prevent authorities imposing 'politically correct' meanings to existing words and then, when we use that word, accusing us of breaking whatever crime they assume has been committed because we have used that word.

I am afraid that I have NO (John Nicholson, note the use of capitals) confidence whatsoever, that a Constitution, written by today's political and bureaucratic elite would deliver a constitution that did not further inhibit the freedoms for which this country was once well known.

Should however, the UK break up into its component parts the question becomes academic as such issues will, it toto, be decided by Brussels.

 Peter

I think it would be a great idea to copy the entire US constitution, but it would be totally unacceptable to the commies and controll freaks who ruin our lives both from Westminster and from Brussels.

Dick

glasshouse:

the scottish system of paying wages at the end of six months ironically gave these men the ability to pay their fare to nz , australia etc.

This is interesting and I did not know that such was the case. It could go some way to explaining the number of Scots who left to go the US at such an exciting time in world history.

A lot of people also went as a result of the missionary activities by a number of religious bodies formed during the period 1810-1860. This was a time when millenialistic fervour was rife in the eastern US and when a large number of new sects came into existence. Around Ledbury alone, some 1500 people went to the US in the year 1840. Many of them setting sail from Sharpness south of Gloucester.

I have often reflected on the sense of freedom, awe, wonder and opportunity they must have felt, when they realised that, "they could make it happen by their own efforts." No wonder they said, and still do. "God bless America."

We are on the road to break the constitution. Some people just want to use it when it works for them and forget it when it don't. So its been great but time will tell.