Andrew Arbuckle: Another court review for long-running rent dispute case

Published on Monday 13 February 2012 00:00

LIKE naughty schoolboys who have messed up their homework, the Land Court has been sent back to once again review the rent case involving the farm of Moonzie in Fife.

The head teacher figure, the Court of Session, reckoned, in agricultural parlance, that the Land Court “had gone down the wrong drill” and used the wrong formula. As a result they had produced the wrong answer. Furthermore, they had not then checked their homework with other comparable rents.

I was somewhat surprised by the strength of the language used in the decision and also by the width of the legal divide, as was Angus McCall, chairman of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association, who wondered how it was that the two legal entities could produce two very divergent views.

But I was assured by an expert that this flexing of legal muscle was not uncommon. It was also widely recognised that the original Land Court decision which produced such a low rental figure had had more than a few heads being scratched and more than a few tenant farming neighbours looking on enviously.

Those who read the legal runes would also reckon that Lord Gill, who headed the Court of Session team reviewing the case, would bring it back into line. He did, after all, as plain Brian Gill QC, write the seminal book on agricultural holdings, which, even if it never hit the best-seller list, is an essential volume for anyone involved in such issues.

My simple concerns, similar to those of many observers of this legal tussle, fall into three categories: the time taken, the cost involved and the process itself.

On time, it has to be remembered that this dispute relates to a rent review in 2008. We are now more than three years on from that date and there is no sign of a resolution. I have no idea if the Land Court has a time limit on completing it but it seems unlikely. They might also be suffering a bad case of the legal dorts (huffs) and will let it lie for a while until they recover their composure.

Also on the time theme, those not familiar with the rent review system may not know that there is an opportunity to review rents after a three-year period. And yes, when 2011 came along, the Moonzie rent was up for review. And yes, this latest version of the rent dispute is now also in the hands of the Land Court.

As a relatively near neighbour in Fife I know both families involved in the dispute. They are both well regarded and well-liked, but this disagreement – which started the best part of three decades ago with a disputed clause in a tenancy agreement – has surely blighted their lives.

On costs, I would once again refer to the words of Angus McColl who mentioned it was costing “six-figure sums” to sort this out. He should know more than a little about this, as the SFTA is financially helping the tenant.

Part of the problem is that the case is seen by both landlords and tenants as a test case and both are backing up their case by employing some of the best and therefore mostly costly legal minds in the country to fighting their corner.

I know it is a cliché, but on my first ever visit to a lawyer’s office I saw this cartoon: one farmer was pulling the head of the cow, another was pulling its tail and there was a lawyer sitting milking the animal. In this dispute, I cannot get that image out of my mind.

And that brings me to the process. If there is one positive that might come out of the current case, it is that the Tenants Farming Forum, the Scottish Agricultural Arbiters and Valuers Association, the NFUS, the Scottish Land and Estates Group bring forward a better system for resolving rental disputes.

I hope they do and I also hope they do so with a real degree of urgency, because disputes such as Moonzie do blight lives. The relationship between landlord and tenant is unusual – the two parties have to work together for the tenancy system to work.

When the two sides are in dispute, get it resolved quickly, inexpensively and in a straightforward easy to understand way.

I am sure that along with sheep identification problems, delays in some Single Farm Payments and the latest position on the Common Agricultural Policy, the Moonzie case will feature in questions to the Cabinet Secretary, Richard Lochhead when he attends the Union’s annual bash in St Andrews this week.

I hope he puts rent reviews well up his agenda.

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bumpkin

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 12:17 PM

well said organic peasant. greedy, grasping b******* s who dont know how to farm, only how to squeeze the life from tenants. they would take the shirt from your back and the food from your childrens mouth. No wonder the irish burnt them out!

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Daye Tucker

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 11:09 AM

Andrew, amen to all you say in your article. Organic peasant, assumptions simply feed perception.

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Organic peasant

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 08:06 AM

It is quite clear that the Lairds will not stop until they have all the SFP, all the non farm income, all the wife's non farm income , all the farm income, all the energy income and all of anything else they can imagine. They are then surprised when the oppressed tenants living in house not fit to keep a dog in try get a small portion of justice. Lairds are without doubt the biggest blight on rural Scotland in its entire history. Right to buy now. This slavery based exploitation must end.

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