The amount of land that comes with any house of course varies enormously. It seems to me however that this is by and large not reflected in the price of the property. Naturally the larger the house you might expect a bigger plot, but I see many examples of properties that are similar in style, condition, location and price yet with hugely different plot sizes.
Aside from the obvious regarding the physical and financial upkeep of a large area of garden, pasture, fields, woods etc are there other things that need to be considered?
For example if I bought a run down fermette with 8 hectares am I going to have to comply with EEC regs about crops, agriculture this and that?? Or extra taxes / requirements not applicable to a straight forward residence. I know that lakes are heavily regulated and must be up to scratch or brought into line on a purchase.
I understand the difference between building, leisure and agricultural land in terms of price and what you can build there or not.
Maybe I am over complicating it but if anyone can point me in the right direction that would be very helpful.
Excellent Doug, thanks for chapter and verse on this - very helpful to hear from you, hope you pop your head over the parapet again if I have any other estate agent related questions.
Quite agree with your last line, and on that basis I'll close this discussion down so that it doesn't get too sizeable.
Thanks again to all who came back to me on this one.
Regards
Good stuff, thanks for that Ben.
Regards
I am an Estate Agent in Brittany. I work freelance for a properly established and regulated French Agency, so do have the necessary carte professionelle issued by the Prefecture and will be pleased to stick my head above the parapet and offer comment on this post!
The requirement regarding the SAFER in Brittany at least, is that for any property being sold that has over 1000m² of land in a non-urban area, the Notaire is required to inform the SAFER and wait 2 months for any farmers to indicate a wish to purchase the land for agricultural purposes. This can be reduced to 1 month by making a small payment.
If a farmer wishes to buy the land and can provide a good case (ie he has less land than he needs to farm effectively ) they are usually able to buy at a price determined by the SAFER and the buyers for the house will have the option to continue with less land or to retract without penalty - the Compromis de Vente will have a clause that provides for this situation, along with a clause covering pre-emption by the Mairie if they require the property for the Commune.
If a property has significant land and the buyers are intending to farm it or use for agricultural purposes this will be taken into consideration against any other interested parties. The intention is to prevent large tracts of land being unused, but in practice it is very rare to see this process take place in my experience (one such case in over 8 years working in a very "agricultural" area) If you own or buy a large amount of land you have no specific obligations to farm it, but you are required to maintain the land such that it is not a nuisance or hazard to the environment (particularly certain weeds such as thistles, or as I had recently with a client, the plot being home to a large number of vipers!)
To answer the initial question - does size matter? When valuing a property we certainly take into account the amount of land a property has, but also consider whether or not the amount of land is appropriate to the size, style and location of the property. The land only really becomes a major factor in the valuation when there is the potential for use as building land, since otherwise agricultural land is of low relative value (around 3500 - 4500 € per hectare in our area). A property with too little land / garden for the size and style of house will often be much harder to sell, but likewise, a small "second home" size property with several acres plot is going to be tough for an Agency to move. Fortunately, different clients want different things, so one cannot say that the size of land will or will not be and advantage or disadvantage when selling, but it is more about "saleability" than strictly value that matters with regard to size.
Its not what you've got but what you do with it that matters!
Doug
Agent Indépendent
Estate Agency in central Brittany
Probably because a lot of so-called estate agents are not qualified "immobiliers" but simply commercial agents.
The Safer is an important agency that has to be contacted whenever a farmer wants to sell his entire or a part of his agricultural property. This procedure is aimed at keeping the agricultural landscape a bit coherent. If no other farmer or the likes wants to buy it, then its up for the market. There are also new regulations (in that same spirit of upholding the coherence) as for selling f.e. woodlands.
Your land will always be taxed considering the use it was destined for. But the taxes on agricultural land (Taxe foncière sur les propriétés non bâties orTFPNB) are small.
If you want to use the land for it's purpose then indeed you do have to deal with all the regulations, EEC yes, but don't forget the rules on your local scale. If you let it really run down the commune could even ask at first and finally oblige you to keep the land in a decent shape. What I see a lot is that people rent the land to other farmers to have f.e. cattle graze it or simply to produce hay etc.
OK that's useful to hear Vic, thanks For coming back to me.
I'd hope that Est' Agents could give specific guidance, though many don't seem that forthcoming or knowledgeable about their properties!
Regards
I seem to remember that before we were allowed to buy our house with 3 Ha of fields it had to be offered to the agricultural community. It was 7 years ago now so my memory is vague on the details. I think the fact that us, as non farmers, bought the land after no interest was expressed by others it in some way de-regulated it. Nobody has ever tried to tell us what we can or cannot do with the land & since purchase we have turned a bit of it into lawns & orchard without adverse comment from the locals.