Me, an introduction

[Underdog]

Hello all, I'm Chris from South Wales. A situation has come up where I am probably going to need the help of this forum.

 

To keep it short, my father and step mother have a farm, they have worked and lived on it (in a large static caravan) for almost 30 years, it's a sheep farm, also has stables, a small garden centre and some other revenue streams.

 

Sadly, my father passed away in January quite suddenly and now my step mother (66 years of age) needs help to keep the farm running.

 

Myself, my wife and children have spent the last 6 weeks doing everything we can to help, but all emergency situations seem to arise at night or the early hours when we are at home. So we have discussed it as a family and need to see if there is a way we could get planning for a fairly large family home on the land for us to live in and take over the running of the farm.

[Mr Punter]

You will need to check this with your local planning authority.  You can often get consent for a dwelling if you can establish that it is required for you to live on site.  They are normally expected to be modest in size and are often bound to be occupied only in connection with the running of the business and they may impose a planning condition to ensure this.

[Underdog]

Just now, Mr Punter said:

You will need to check this with your local planning authority.  You can often get consent for a dwelling if you can establish that it is required for you to live on site.  They are normally expected to be modest in size and are often bound to be occupied only in connection with the running of the business and they may impose a planning condition to ensure this.

 

Thanks for the reply

 

Modest isn't an issue, however there are 3 children, so it would still need to be a decent size family home unfortunately without that it would mean the land having to be sold.

[PeterW]

Welcome. 
 

Sorry to hear about your situation 

 

How big is the land ..?? That will affect whether you can build on the land and what you may get away with. 
 

The good news is that having a static van on site for 30 years you may well have created a permanent residence requirement. You may need to show that the property to be built is predominately to support the business - will you or your partner be fully employed in running the farm..??

[Underdog]

Thank you for the kind words.

 

The land is 72 acres in total, I will be full time employed to run the farm but my step mother will maintain ownership for her life span. 

[PeterW]

18 minutes ago, Underdog said:

Thank you for the kind words.

 

The land is 72 acres in total, I will be full time employed to run the farm but my step mother will maintain ownership for her life span. 

Ok - so that changes dynamics and I assume your step mother will move from the caravan into the house ..?? Could look at some sort of annexe..??

You may be best applying for a replacement for the ‘van and may even be better for step mother to be named on the application. Does the farm solely end up in your name ..?

 

[Underdog]

4 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Ok - so that changes dynamics and I assume your step mother will move from the caravan into the house ..?? Could look at some sort of annexe..??

You may be best applying for a replacement for the ‘van and may even be better for step mother to be named on the application. Does the farm solely end up in your name ..?

 

 

My step mother wishes to continue to live in the caravan, it was her home with my father.

 

The land would be split 4 ways on her death (though ultimately will be probably sold by 2 of those parties to the other two) but the land with the house built on it would be on my "share" of the land.