How Do Agricultural Ties and Occupancy Conditions Affect Rural Properties?
Author: Jim Ryan
Key Contact: Steve Morris
Agricultural and forestry workers, and rural property agents, will be familiar with both agricultural ties and occupancy conditions which may restrict the use of many rural dwellings. Sometimes called colloquially, “Ag Tags”, they serve related (but different) purposes and it is not unknown for them to be confused with each other.
An occupancy condition seeks to limit new residential development in the countryside, to “rural enterprise dwellings” as one of few circumstances when isolated new dwellings in the open countryside may be justified. Usually, this is done by applying a standard condition on any planning consent for such development and Welsh Office Circular 16/2014 (The Use of Planning Conditions for Development Management) advises the following wording:
“The occupancy of the dwelling shall be restricted to:
a) a person solely or mainly working, or last working on a rural enterprise in the locality, or a widow, widower or surviving civil partner of such a person, and to any resident dependants; or if it can be demonstrated that there are no such eligible occupiers,
b) a person or persons who would be eligible for consideration for affordable housing under the local authority’s housing policies, or a widow, widower or surviving civil partner of such a person, and to any resident dependants.”
An agricultural tie is more onerous and by a planning obligation may tie a rural enterprise dwelling to a particular holding, thus ensuring that it cannot be sold off separately from the land to which it is tied. Occasionally, the planning obligation may also repeat the occupancy condition, thus giving a “belt and braces” approach and in the past planning authorities have frequently adopted this approach, perhaps believing that would make enforcement against a breach of the condition easier.
Because both occupancy conditions and agricultural ties are restrictions on the property, this will have an impact on their resale value and reduce the resale value compared to open market value by, typically, around 30%.
Policy guidance on the use of occupancy conditions is contained in Welsh Office Circular 13/97: Planning Obligations and also in Planning Policy Wales, Edition 12, which both favour the control of occupancy by planning condition, rendering unnecessary the duplication of the condition in a planning obligation. For new development, such duplication fails to meet the requirement of Regulation 122(2)(a) of The Community Infrastructure Regulations 2010 (2010/948) (as amended).
TAN6 advises that it should not be necessary to tie the occupation of the dwelling to workers engaged in one specific rural enterprise even if the needs of that enterprise justified the provision of the dwelling. This recognizes the need for the dwelling to remain available to meet the needs of other rural enterprises in the locality if it is no longer needed for the original enterprise. This advice is echoed in Welsh Office Circular 16/2014.
Acuity Law is pleased to have succeeded in a recent planning appeal securing the discharge of a planning obligation (PEDW[1] reference: CAS-03493-R0N0B5) which comprised an agricultural tie and which also repeated the occupancy condition on the planning permission.
If you have any queries about this issue, please contact Jim Ryan and the Planning and Environmental Team.
[1] Planning and Environment Decisions Wales
