The sale is with SAFER now if we don’t hear from them within 2 months it’s an assumed right to proceed the sale according to the notaire. He advised SAFER won’t be interested as the plot is too small. If they do come back and say the farmer has first dibs on the land then I’m afraid we will have to walk away as the land is what makes it work for us.
The relevant info is doubtless listed somewhere at the Mairie… but, no, I do not have it to hand and do not have the time to delve… I simply know (after many years’ experience) how things work.
Great… the land is important to you… therefore it is essential that the land is not tied to anyone… farmer, postman or anyone else…
Stick to your guns… let no-one onto the land… cross your fingers and keep us up to date…please.
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Well, that’s part of the charm, after all 
In this case however exactly the same issue exists in the UK - it is very easy for farmers to acquire grazing rights and difficult for land owners to revoke them when established.
Thah’s OK I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t more than one bit of law. If I ever have time I might try to look it up.
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Nil Desperandum Brian. My first house here was a farmhouse that hadn’t been lived in for 50 years. There were several family members involved with the heritage. One of them refused to sell, hence the house wasn’t lived in until that person died. His heriters then agreed to put the house up for sale, we saw it during a visit to view other places, fell in love with it and lo and behold our offer was accepted.
It did have to pass through SAFER, or whatever they were called then, but thankfully at that time no one else wanted to buy !
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So I’ve listened to everyones valuable advice thank you all for your concern and valuable input. As a result I have written to the agent and the notaire this evening instructing them not to issue the letter to the farmer. We will keep the land for our use only, guess I’ll be looking for a tractor and mower now though lol!
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Paul, this is the Code about renting agricultural land - haven’t read it all myself but seems a good place to start
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do?idArticle=LEGIARTI000006583720&idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006152249&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006071367&dateTexte=20181125
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That’s great Brian, you won’t regret it believe me.
It’s a good way to keep your partner from all that cheese and wine, just mention that he should maybe fire up the tractor and get mowing ! 
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Right - time to brush up on some legal French
Thanks.
Are you paying to fast track the paperwork through SAFER?
There is a big difference between letting a farmer enter your property once or twice a year to harvest hay and letting a farmer put cattle in to graze, which is like granting permanent access.
At least I hope that’s true because we have let our neighbour mow our meadow for the past dozen years. But he always asks permission each time and there have been countless occasions when he has helped us in various ways. Furthermore he only cuts his side of our boundary trees and hedges when their overhang becomes a nuisance.
Good decision Brian, I will now mention what happened to a Dutch couple who like you intended to do, gave a local farmer written permission to use their land which was a second home to them after 5 years they decided to move over to live here permanently and gave the farmer notice to quit the land.
A few months after they moved in they were woken in the middle of the night to find that their barn was on fire causing very serious damage, cannot go into any more detail because this is very sensitive subject to discuss on a public forum, they have since put the house on the market.
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No we aren’t I didn’t know that was an option but we have set a completion date of 22nd of January which is all booked up with the Notaire. That suits us and the vendor. So we are sticking with that date. If SAFER decide they want the land there is little we can do about that and we will start our search over again.
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Very true, when we moved to rural France and then became farmers we very quickly learned to stop thinking like an Englishman.
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Thomas did you get my Message… ??
Many thanks Stella, I did get your message and am grateful for all the points you raised.
I didn’t realise it was private message otherwise I would have replied directly.
Must become more familiar with the customs and usage of this forum.
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Michael, I’d love to hear some of the major differences you’ve discovered.
Would love to Beverly, cannot go into to much detail because I live with Dyslexia but will try to keep it in my short way.
Back in the UK I was a staunch torie and was thinking like one over here but that all changed when we brought a working farm and the French owner carried on working part time with me after the sale to help us through all what was necessary to become cereal farmers in France.
This man was a staunch French socialist so was expecting a few well discussed discussions in the next few years but the more that I listened to him about the French way of socialism the more that I thought that this if used correctly was indeed very fair to all concerned .
Then a different side of me started to appear, I started to take into consideration my neighbours and the local community and felt that to live and work with these people one had to understand how and why they do things the way they do.
Could go into a lot of stories with regards to our near neighboring farmers and the Chasse along with the commune so please before you start doing things that you would have done in England just stop and think why the people around you live like they do and the law here is not always straight forward like the UK but is made to be fair to all people.
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A great answer Mick.
Wow, was not expecting that, thank you.