buying land

[Rivington]

Hi - we have owned our house for about 5 yrs now and are very, very happy with it - only for holidays at the moment, but in about 3 yrs, I hope to spend much more time there when I retire, possibly all the time when my husband also retires!

There is a piece of land adjacent to ours which we would like to buy, simply because we don't want anyone else to buy it and be right on our doorstep as it were. It is landlocked, except for a path that runs along the top of it, but only up to the boundary of our land. Our neighbours tell us that they know the owner of the land and would we like to meet him? Well we would, but we want to find out more about the land first. Our land and this, are partially covered with trees and are near to woodland. It seems to be split into perhaps 2 or 3 parcels according to our cadastral. Part of it is used to graze cattle - we don't want to buy that bit - and the rest about 1000 sq m has at one time had a small stone house on it, which burned down about 30 yrs ago and now has a huge tree growing up inside where the house used to be. It has a kind of concrete portakabin on it, which has an old bed and a cupboard in it - perhaps it was used as a temporary shelter after the house burned down. The only access to the road is across our land, which is why we want to own it. Questions are, will it be viewed as agricultural land or residential? what is the going rate for either? is it true that the authorities are trying to get rid of all the tiny parcels of land by insisting that they are merged together and sold as a large lot? How do we find out more about he land, before we ask our neighbours to set up a meeting with the owner? - we would rather know all there is to know about it before that!   Can anyone help with any of this?  

Carole

[Val_2]

Before you get in touch with the owner regarding the sale of the land to you, I advise you strongly to speak to the maire because utimately he would know if it is going to be likely plus any problems that there may be regarding servitudes etc. There are many new regs now concerning the sale of parcels of land especially those in the countryside outside the commune urbanisation boundary and you really do need to know where you stand. From my experience on the local council we continually get updated maps of land parcels which are/are not constructible and also which may never be sold for any other use than agriculture purposes. In our commune we have stopped the construction of properties in isolated parts due to the costs involved with laying on electricity,water and telephones as it is not fair that the commune finances should be used in this way when there is perfectly good building land available nearer the village and also to protect the environment from overbuilding.There is also the problem that SAFER(Agriculture authority) have to be informed too so that it can be offered to local farmers first.

[Stocky]

I have an interest in this as I have been offered the plot of land 4,300 sq mtrs) next to our property.  It is between the Urbanisation boundary and the agricultural boundary, I believe it could be deemed Recreational as the colour scheme at the Marie is a belt including the Commune Park.  We ahve been told we cannot build on it as we are in a National Park, but that is not our aim.

However it contains 69 poplar trees that were planted under an EU grant some years back.  Does anyone have an idea of what my responsibilities for these trees, as I would like to plant different types of trees to atract the red squirrels in.  Can I cut them down or are they owned by some unknown body.