Business Clinic: Can property with an agricultural tie be split?

Whether it’s a legal, tax, finance or management question, Farmers Weekly’s expert panel can help.

Here, Fred Quartermain, a partner in Thrings’ planning and environment team, advises on how agricultural occupancy conditions work.

See also: Business Clinic: how do we formalise farm staff housing rights

Q: A smallholding near our farm was sold privately in 2021. Its only dwelling is a 1980s bungalow with an agricultural occupancy condition.

The new owners are not farmers and are occupying the bungalow in breach of the planning condition. They submitted plans to convert the farm buildings into houses but these were withdrawn when the council informed them of the tie.

They then applied to remove the occupancy condition using false information. This was withdrawn.

A further application to develop was submitted and refused. The bungalow is on the market but some of the land has been sold to one person and the remaining land and buildings to someone else.

Is it legal to split up the property and does the agricultural restriction apply to each separate title?

A: To give specific advice, I would need to see the relevant documents. However, the question raises some useful general points about how agricultural occupancy restrictions work and whether splitting land affects them.

An agricultural occupancy restriction – commonly called an “agricultural tie” – limits who can live in a property, typically requiring the occupier to work (or have worked) in farming or forestry.

There are two ways this kind of restriction can be put in place, and which one applies here makes a big difference to what happens when the land is divided.

The first option is a planning condition. This is a requirement attached to the original planning permission for the building (under s72 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990).

The second option is a planning obligation (made under s106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990), which is a legal agreement between the landowner and the council.

Differences

There are several differences between the two approaches, the key one for the purposes of this question being that a planning condition is tied to the permission itself, whereas a planning obligation is tied to the land and will bind the successors of title and any future owner of that land.

If the tie is a planning condition, it only affects who can live in the development allowed by the permission – in this case, a bungalow. It does not place any restriction on the rest of the land around it.

The standard wording used in most such conditions says that the home must be occupied by someone solely or mainly employed – or last employed – in agriculture or forestry in the local area, or by the widow or widower of such a person, or by dependants living with them.

If the condition follows this format it would not prevent the occupancy of any other building on the land – although residential conversion of other buildings would be subject to separate planning control.

Importantly, this standard wording does not require the occupier to work on the same farm that the bungalow sits on – working anywhere in farming or forestry locally would be sufficient.

Some conditions are worded more tightly and do require a direct connection to the specific land, but that is less common.

If the condition here uses the standard wording with no such link, then splitting up the land would raise no planning concerns at all.

If the tie is instead a planning obligation, things are a little different. The restriction on who can live in the bungalow still applies in the same way.

However, a planning obligation covers all the land shown on the plan that was attached to the original agreement – which may well have been the whole smallholding.

If so, the obligation will technically continue to sit over all that land even after it has been sold off in separate parcels.

Again, the precise wording matters.

Unless the obligation specifically requires the bungalow to be linked to farming activity on that particular piece of land, someone working in agriculture locally should still qualify to live there, regardless of how the land has been divided.

Connection to land

If justified on the back of a specific policy requirement, a tie could be imposed that connects the occupancy of the bungalow to the specific land.

This, however, is not standard wording for an agricultural tie and would require more specific legal advice. Even then, it wouldn’t necessarily stop the separation of the dwelling from the land.

In short, whether the tie is a planning condition or a planning obligation, the restriction applies to the living accommodation. Splitting the property up does not in itself create any planning problem.

The agricultural tie will follow the bungalow, but it should not prevent the land from being sold separately, and it is unlikely to be a reason for refusing any future planning application on the other parcels of land.

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