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This is one issue like others where we have gone wrong a long time ago and don't have an easy way back. I think Scotland got it right when they passed a law tha

This is one issue like others where we have gone wrong a long time ago and don't have an easy way back. I think Scotland got it right when they passed a law that required a landowner to sell to a not-for-profit at the market rate if they were selling and they couldn't be outbid by a private buyer. I would be interested to know the proportion of non-wilded land and how much is private farming land, national parks, private estates etc. and realistically how much of each would need turning back to nature to make it worthwhile. I don't think that buying from farmers is impossible, there must be plenty who would happily sell for market rate + 25% or something, something that could easily be done by a combination of crowd-funding and government grants.

radford-neal 4y ago
"...a law that required a landowner to sell to a not-for-profit at the market rate if they were selling and they couldn't be outbid by a private buyer" Why would a law be required for this? Wouldn't the landowner just naturally be willing to sell to the not-for-profit entity if they were willing to pay as much or more than someone else? I have to suspect that this is really about forcing the landowner to sell at less than market rate, with some sort of camouflage to conceal that that's what's happening.
- obowersa 4y ago
  TL;DR: Sometimes! So its a little more complex and a little bit more nuanced. The mechanism is part of the land reform policy and called the ‘Community Right To Buy’. Ahead of time, a community body (which has a legal definition) can register an interest in buying qualifying land. All of these notes of interest are available from the registers of scotland and has to be renewed regularly/etc. At the point that a landowner indicates to the land register that a piece of land is to be transferred (which could be due to public sale, or a private sale or direct transfer), the bodies with notes of interest are notified. This then kicks off a whole process, including an independent market price evaluation, reviewing of land development/business plans and if that all goes through, final ministerial approval. It can lead to land being sold at less than the offers over price (scotland has a weird way of doing land/property sales), or for more, depending on if the land transfer was a public sale or a private shift around. Its not a perfect system and has a lot of flaws, but its worth being aware of the implementation.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    So if I want to give land to a friend, I can be forced to sell it if one of these groups have shown interest? That sounds very strange
    - obowersa 4y ago
      At a high level, yes. However there are a lot of checks and balances to it. Not all land falls under the criteria and there's a lot of requirements around forming a group and the proposed use of the land ( such as being geographically local /etc ). When I last looked into it, I think there'd only been 2 occurrences of the right to buy happening over a 4 year period. Which does raise the question on 'Does the act achieve the goals it was setout to achieve' or is it mainly political posturing. That's not something I can really comment on (nor would I want to).
    - markdown 4y ago
      > That sounds wonderful There should always be an opportunity for land to return to the commons.
rlpb 4y ago
If it's not possible to sell to a private buyer, how is it possible to determine a "market rate"? There would be no market.

radford-neal 4y ago

"...a law that required a landowner to sell to a not-for-profit at the market rate if they were selling and they couldn't be outbid by a private buyer" Why would a law be required for this? Wouldn't the landowner just naturally be willing to sell to the not-for-profit entity if they were willing to pay as much or more than someone else? I have to suspect that this is really about forcing the landowner to sell at less than market rate, with some sort of camouflage to conceal that that's what's happening.

obowersa 4y ago
TL;DR: Sometimes! So its a little more complex and a little bit more nuanced. The mechanism is part of the land reform policy and called the ‘Community Right To Buy’. Ahead of time, a community body (which has a legal definition) can register an interest in buying qualifying land. All of these notes of interest are available from the registers of scotland and has to be renewed regularly/etc. At the point that a landowner indicates to the land register that a piece of land is to be transferred (which could be due to public sale, or a private sale or direct transfer), the bodies with notes of interest are notified. This then kicks off a whole process, including an independent market price evaluation, reviewing of land development/business plans and if that all goes through, final ministerial approval. It can lead to land being sold at less than the offers over price (scotland has a weird way of doing land/property sales), or for more, depending on if the land transfer was a public sale or a private shift around. Its not a perfect system and has a lot of flaws, but its worth being aware of the implementation.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  So if I want to give land to a friend, I can be forced to sell it if one of these groups have shown interest? That sounds very strange
  - obowersa 4y ago
    At a high level, yes. However there are a lot of checks and balances to it. Not all land falls under the criteria and there's a lot of requirements around forming a group and the proposed use of the land ( such as being geographically local /etc ). When I last looked into it, I think there'd only been 2 occurrences of the right to buy happening over a 4 year period. Which does raise the question on 'Does the act achieve the goals it was setout to achieve' or is it mainly political posturing. That's not something I can really comment on (nor would I want to).
  - markdown 4y ago
    > That sounds wonderful There should always be an opportunity for land to return to the commons.

rlpb 4y ago

If it's not possible to sell to a private buyer, how is it possible to determine a "market rate"? There would be no market.