Guides for Landowners

There are 15 guides, and nobody needs all of them. Each one stands on its own, but they build on each other, and most landowners get the most from reading them in roughly this order:

1. How the deals work. What you would sign, how you are paid and who carries the risk.
2. How planning could happen. National policy, the local plan and a realistic timetable.
3. What could get in the way. Access, flooding, tenancies, ecology and anything specific to your land.
4. What you keep. Fees, deductions, overage and tax.

The reading paths below follow that order for five common situations. Pick the closest one and skip anything that clearly does not apply to you.

Fields on the Edge of a Town or Village

1. Option agreements explained: the most common way land like yours is taken forward.
2. The new NPPF: when homes can now be approved outside settlement boundaries.
3. Call for sites and local plans: the other route, through the council's plan.
4. How long planning takes: realistic timescales for each route.
5. Access and ransom strips and flood risk: the two issues that most often decide whether a field works.

Land in the Green Belt

1. Grey belt land explained: whether your land could qualify, and the Golden Rules that follow.
2. Call for sites and local plans: how councils review Green Belt boundaries when they prepare a plan.
3. Option agreements explained: how a deal would be structured.

Inherited Land, or Land Held by Executors

1. Probate and selling land: who can sign, and what has to happen first.
2. Tax when selling land for development: Capital Gains Tax, inheritance tax and the reliefs that changed in April 2026.
3. Tenancies and vacant possession: if the land is let or grazed by someone else.

Comparing Offers You Have Already Received

1. Option agreements explained: the terms that matter most, and the questions to ask.
2. Promotion agreements: fees and deductions: how a share of the sale price turns into what you receive.
3. Overage explained: how to share in value that arrives after you sell.
4. Section 106 and CIL explained: the council's charges that come out of every land price.
5. Biodiversity Net Gain: a cost that varies a lot from one field to the next.

Farm Buildings and Old Yards

1. Class Q: converting agricultural buildings to homes without a full planning application.
2. The new NPPF: how previously developed land and land inside settlements are now treated.
3. Grey belt land explained: if the yard is in the Green Belt.

If you have had a letter from us or anyone else, read received a letter? first. It explains how to check who wrote to you and what not to sign.

Planning and tax rules change often. In the last two years alone, the government has rewritten the National Planning Policy Framework, introduced grey belt, changed Biodiversity Net Gain for small sites, raised Capital Gains Tax rates and capped Agricultural and Business Property Relief. Advice written before those changes can be badly wrong now.

Each guide shows the date it was last reviewed and lists the official sources it relies on, so you can check them yourself. We review every guide at least every six months, and sooner when the rules change. Where a guide touches on tax or law, it is general information rather than advice, and we say so.

If you spot something that has changed, or a question these guides do not answer, tell us. The most useful guides started as questions from landowners.