Tenants and landowners clash over rents

TENANTS AND landowners have clashed over the direction of rental values following CAP reform.

According to the Tenant Farmers Association, rents must fall across the board.

“It is difficult to foresee much, if any, of a margin from most broad-acre arable crops which means that overheads such as rent will have to fall, and fall substantially,” said organisation chairman Reg Haydon.

Mr Haydon said tenants should apply for a rent review this autumn or else the opportunity would be lost for another year.

“If a rent review is available but not taken up then your landlord may use that against your neighbour or another tenant on the estate who is arguing for a reduction.”

But the Country Land and Business Association took a very different view, and appeared to close out prospects of a rent review on the scale demanded by the TFA.

“Land prices haven’t fallen and there’s a queue of people looking to rent farms,” said assistant regional director David Price.

“I can’t see any justification for lower rents, and it is a fact that the costs are there for the landowner just as they are for the tenant.”