UK Land Investment?

Question

My relatives in Singapore are interested in UK land investment. Kindly provide information for these questions:

- What are government's policies?
- Which government department oversees related activities?
- Any protection for investors' interests?
- What are the future developments for these lands?
- How about tax issue?
- Will buying UK land help overseas nations to apply
- citizenship in the country?

Answer 1

Unless you intend to actually build on the land, I would suggest investing in a Fund or a Company that actually owns the land.

Note, however, that profits are better made from Property (rather than Land) - to build on the Land you need planning permission and this can be VERY difficult to obtain ... some Land is 'reserved' for farming and no matter what you do you will never get permission to build houses on it.

Do your own research befor jumping in - some links below should get you started

Answer 2

One very important thing you should be aware of is that several promoters of land investment in UK (typically described as 'Landbanking') are SCAMS. Beware!!

In short, the scam works like this:
The promoters buy a plot of agricultural land without Planning Permission. They divide it into small house-sized plots and re-sell it for many times what it is actually worth. In one case at Collingham in Nottinghamshire, they bought a piece of land for £360,000, divided it into small plots, and sold these at prices which would rake in a total of £4 million. Sometimes the land is flood plain on which there is no chance of Planning Permission ever being granted.

Below, I give a link to a recent discussion about this scam on the Motley Fool bulletin board, which includes links to further information about it.

An earlier respondent gave a link to a landbanking web site. I do not know that particular organisation, but it carries many of the classic features of a fraud, e.g. there is no indication of where this company is (no address) nor any names of people who run this business. The only telephone number is an 0845 number, which could be anywhere. One of the other links, to a site which claims to be an educational tool about Land Investment UK, also looks a bit fishy to me, as there is no information about the organisation which runs the web site, and the links pages are vast but largely irrelevant (e.g. the links to Real Estate professionals is entirely to businesses in USA) - maybe they are trying to create an illusion of respectability?

Investment in land is outside the scope of the FSA which exists to protect investors' interests on many kinds of collective investments. The FSA have, however, put out a warning about landbanking investment schemes.

If you are not resident or domiciled in UK, any capital gains, even on UK assets, would not be subject to UK Capital Gains Tax, see link to HM Revenue web site below.

I believe the comment made by an earlier respondent about investment in land only being open to UK nationals or permanent residents is wrong. Many countries have that kind of restriction but not the UK, as far as I am aware.

Many countries will give favourable immigration status to applicants who have invested in the country. I do not think this is the case in UK. I give a link below to the web site of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (part of the Home Office).

Answer 3

We do not have spare land. All we have is needed to house the 600,000 immigrants coming in legally and illegally every year.

Answer 4

you cannot buy land unless you are a permanent resident or citizen, you will pay much tax and frankly, you may be met with some hostile answers, as the UK is quite crowded and they are building on much of our beautiful country side (whats' left of it!)

Answer 5

dont bother mate we have not got enough as it is , and when we do get enough money to buy some land, people like you have nicked it

Answer 6

why england? Come to spain, it's much nicer.