doctor Bob
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RogerS":3dlfd65i said:
You still have the rest of the estate, most of us have a garden.
Owning/Maintaining woodland/farmland
- Thread starter minilathe22
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You still have the rest of the estate, most of us have a garden.
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
My tuppence-worth:
I wouldn't buy a plot of land like this with borrowed money (or money I needed for more everday things) - its a luxury/hobby at best. You can buy and then plant farmland or buy woodland. If you're doing it (partly) for IHT purposes it's well worth getting professional tax advice.
For small plots of farm/woodland near "civilization" you're competing with folk who want a pony paddock, or folk of the peripatetic persuasion who want to put some scruffy ponies and some 'mobile homes' on it, or folk who want to try and do what you're doing (perhaps also planning to sneakily build an eco-living-pod of some description - without the benefit of planning consent - for family use or as some kind of holiday let). If the land is in a National Park or an AONB then the 'development' rules are strict and can cause you to incur extra costs.
Managing woodland - the amount of effort and expense depends hugely on what you've got and what you want to do with it - and how much you want to influence what mother nature would otherwise do herself quite happily. Ideally, you should have a "management plan" for the woodland which ideally should involve expert input. Effort is often in short bursts of a few weeks/months, usually in the winter months, with variable - usually long - gaps in between.
If you have ancient semi-natural woodland, the best thing you can do with it is minimal intervention intended to keep it in good ecological shape. Such woodland takes centuries to create and can be degraded/destroyed very quickly if you're not mindful - again expert advice would be very wise.
Don't forget that you can only "harvest" a maximum of 5m3 of timber per season before you need permission from the Forestry Commission. https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... permission
I wouldn't buy a plot of land like this with borrowed money (or money I needed for more everday things) - its a luxury/hobby at best. You can buy and then plant farmland or buy woodland. If you're doing it (partly) for IHT purposes it's well worth getting professional tax advice.
For small plots of farm/woodland near "civilization" you're competing with folk who want a pony paddock, or folk of the peripatetic persuasion who want to put some scruffy ponies and some 'mobile homes' on it, or folk who want to try and do what you're doing (perhaps also planning to sneakily build an eco-living-pod of some description - without the benefit of planning consent - for family use or as some kind of holiday let). If the land is in a National Park or an AONB then the 'development' rules are strict and can cause you to incur extra costs.
Managing woodland - the amount of effort and expense depends hugely on what you've got and what you want to do with it - and how much you want to influence what mother nature would otherwise do herself quite happily. Ideally, you should have a "management plan" for the woodland which ideally should involve expert input. Effort is often in short bursts of a few weeks/months, usually in the winter months, with variable - usually long - gaps in between.
If you have ancient semi-natural woodland, the best thing you can do with it is minimal intervention intended to keep it in good ecological shape. Such woodland takes centuries to create and can be degraded/destroyed very quickly if you're not mindful - again expert advice would be very wise.
Don't forget that you can only "harvest" a maximum of 5m3 of timber per season before you need permission from the Forestry Commission. https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... permission
RogerS
Established Member
doctor Bob":yui26c8z said:
Ah but you also have some very nice cars
Eric
Member
It is a great feeling when you can buy a small piece of England/Wales (or even Scotland, but be extra careful there or you may find Mrs Sturgeon has plans to take it from you), however unless you are very lucky, be prepared for lots of disappointments before you get there.
I've had that same yearning to find a piece of woodland/farmland for most of my life. Once I saved up what I thought was enough, the hardest thing was finding a patch of ground for sale - it took me 6 years. The small amount that does come up each year is mostly sold at auction, often as Woody2Shoes says, to a variety of people all prepared to pay way more than the "average" price of farmland. Small plots often go for 3 or 4 times the price of larger ones - even more if someone believes that one day they will get planning permission to build there dream home.
Before you go to any auction make sure you read and understand the Title Deeds to the property, it is surprising how many people still feel the need to restrict what you can do after they have sold. You need to have ready cash for most auctions, check the terms, the buyer typically needs to pay 10% on the day and the rest within 30 days.
Think twice before buying land with trees growing close to public roads, it could cost you a small fortune if they need professional work doing on them now or in the future.
One of the best places to look for land is in farming publications where (when there isn't a global pandemic) you can often see land being sold in multiple lots, there may well be an odd corner that would suit you. The "Farmers Guardian" is one of the best, though not sure how far south they cover.
The Smallwoods organisation that marcos gave you the link to is a great place to start. It doesn't cost much to join, I joined several years before I had any land. Once you are a member you will get access to all sorts of information about woodlands. They run low cost training events such as non-commercial chainsaw use and you will receive invites to woodland events throughout the country. If you go to them you get to see other peoples private woodland and there are often people there who know a lot about trees and who are only too willing to pass their knowledge on for free. One of them may even know of a patch of woodland about to come up for sale ... Good luck !
I've had that same yearning to find a piece of woodland/farmland for most of my life. Once I saved up what I thought was enough, the hardest thing was finding a patch of ground for sale - it took me 6 years. The small amount that does come up each year is mostly sold at auction, often as Woody2Shoes says, to a variety of people all prepared to pay way more than the "average" price of farmland. Small plots often go for 3 or 4 times the price of larger ones - even more if someone believes that one day they will get planning permission to build there dream home.
Before you go to any auction make sure you read and understand the Title Deeds to the property, it is surprising how many people still feel the need to restrict what you can do after they have sold. You need to have ready cash for most auctions, check the terms, the buyer typically needs to pay 10% on the day and the rest within 30 days.
Think twice before buying land with trees growing close to public roads, it could cost you a small fortune if they need professional work doing on them now or in the future.
One of the best places to look for land is in farming publications where (when there isn't a global pandemic) you can often see land being sold in multiple lots, there may well be an odd corner that would suit you. The "Farmers Guardian" is one of the best, though not sure how far south they cover.
The Smallwoods organisation that marcos gave you the link to is a great place to start. It doesn't cost much to join, I joined several years before I had any land. Once you are a member you will get access to all sorts of information about woodlands. They run low cost training events such as non-commercial chainsaw use and you will receive invites to woodland events throughout the country. If you go to them you get to see other peoples private woodland and there are often people there who know a lot about trees and who are only too willing to pass their knowledge on for free. One of them may even know of a patch of woodland about to come up for sale ... Good luck !
RogerS":230gbx75 said:
Ah. Yes. Common here to find beer cans or bottles and ashes from a camp fire in your woods. With brush and leaf, and cover of evening, nobody will see it.
It's lessened over the years as youth have turned from beer and cigarettes to cell phones and pouting.
heimlaga
Established Member
Together with my parents I own 4 hectares of woodland and a 0,3 hectare field here in Finland. Some 3 hectares of the wood is mature.
We harvest windfallen or dead or otherwise useless trees for household firewood and some timber for our own needs. It is very practical to be almost self reliant on timber and to get a significant portion of our firewood needs covered this way. From a financial point of wiew it is a sort of self funding hobby bordering side income. No cash profit at all but the saved cost of timber and firewood adds up over time.
There is a sawmill in the next village where I get the wood milled at a very reasonable cost.
Felling and buckng is done either with chainsaw or bowsaw depending on how strong my back is at the moment. The old full size logger's bowsaw is ridiculously slow and quite frustrationg to use but at times my back just cannot carry the weight of the chainsaw at all. Normally I fell and buck with the chainsaw and limb with an axe as limbing is harder on the back than felling and bucking.
I use a 1971 model Massey-Ferguson 165 equipped with front guard and sole plate and of cause a mid 1980-ies Normet PTO driven logging winch for hauling out logs from awkward spots and for pulling down trees that lean the wrong way. I mount a boom onto the winch for loading. The log trailer is a 1960-ies Gisebo. The purchase cost of the entire rig was somewhere around 8000 euros (8-10 years ago) but there was a significant amount of repairs and improvements I had to do before everything worked perfectly. Now I have come far enough to get logs out of the woods even with a bad back.
I would say woodland is rather unproblematic to own as long as you accept that mother nature makes the great decisions herself. Harvesting her surplus isn't too hard.
This year we got a full trailer load of timber back from the sawmill. The sawing cost was somewhere around 140 euros. The same amount of sawn timber would certainly cost at least 1000 euros if I had to buy it. A decent return for some weekends and days off spent in the wood and 113 euros I paid a neighbour for 5 surplus logs he had. Once I was at it I could not say no to a few cheap logs.
We harvest windfallen or dead or otherwise useless trees for household firewood and some timber for our own needs. It is very practical to be almost self reliant on timber and to get a significant portion of our firewood needs covered this way. From a financial point of wiew it is a sort of self funding hobby bordering side income. No cash profit at all but the saved cost of timber and firewood adds up over time.
There is a sawmill in the next village where I get the wood milled at a very reasonable cost.
Felling and buckng is done either with chainsaw or bowsaw depending on how strong my back is at the moment. The old full size logger's bowsaw is ridiculously slow and quite frustrationg to use but at times my back just cannot carry the weight of the chainsaw at all. Normally I fell and buck with the chainsaw and limb with an axe as limbing is harder on the back than felling and bucking.
I use a 1971 model Massey-Ferguson 165 equipped with front guard and sole plate and of cause a mid 1980-ies Normet PTO driven logging winch for hauling out logs from awkward spots and for pulling down trees that lean the wrong way. I mount a boom onto the winch for loading. The log trailer is a 1960-ies Gisebo. The purchase cost of the entire rig was somewhere around 8000 euros (8-10 years ago) but there was a significant amount of repairs and improvements I had to do before everything worked perfectly. Now I have come far enough to get logs out of the woods even with a bad back.
I would say woodland is rather unproblematic to own as long as you accept that mother nature makes the great decisions herself. Harvesting her surplus isn't too hard.
This year we got a full trailer load of timber back from the sawmill. The sawing cost was somewhere around 140 euros. The same amount of sawn timber would certainly cost at least 1000 euros if I had to buy it. A decent return for some weekends and days off spent in the wood and 113 euros I paid a neighbour for 5 surplus logs he had. Once I was at it I could not say no to a few cheap logs.
minilathe22
Established Member
Thank you for all the varied input. I have some reading to do, I think perhaps I should save up a bit longer and wait for a larger plot to come on the market. In the meantime I can keep an eye on land auctions and get familiar with the kinds of things that come up for sale - and at what prices.
Currently reading the Wilding book!
Currently reading the Wilding book!
whiskywill
Established Member
Woody2Shoes said:
Woody2Shoes
Impressive Member
whiskywill":36j0cdsc said:
Thanks - I remembered it as per calendar season! Effectively 5m3 is about one large tree.
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