Court's valuations for farm rents 'fail to provide acceptable results'

That was the view of David Seed, an independent consultant working mostly in the Borders and the current chairman of the Scottish Agricultural Arbiters and Valuers Association.

Speaking to The Scotsman yesterday, Seed said: "The obvious point is that lawyers should do law and valuers should do valuation.

"Ask a lawyer to give you a valuation if you want, but don't be surprised if you get the wrong answer. It is much better to use a SAAVA member and get a sensible answer for a fraction of the cost."

He was critical of the Moonzie finding, which was based on deducting Single Farm Payment subsidy payments from the net farm income and then dividing the remainder between the landlord and tenant.

That method could give major discrepancies in setting rents, especially on more extensive farming where subsidy payments were a major factor.

There was also the fact that recent rulings on "impenetrable land" would affect such an equation.

Seed said that a recent rent-setting exercise which SAAVA members had conducted at Aikengall Farm at Dunbar had resulted in the vast majority of experienced arbiters resorting to the known and tried criteria of basing rental value on production capacity.

"It is far more important to know the tonnage of cereals the land can produce and the number of sheep or cattle it can maintain," he said.

Aikengall is owned by John Hamilton, but for the sake of the SAAVA exercise they were asked to consider it as a rented unit. Seed said if the Moonzie criteria had been used on the 1,900 acre hill farm, there would have been a massive rise in normal rental values.

"Using the land court criteria, I ended up with a figure which I knew was far too high for a farm of this type and stocking. However, when I based it on so much per ewe, so much per cow and so much per arable acre, a far more reasonable rental figure emerged."

Seed also indicated that SAAVA members, who are all practical professional men either working directly in agriculture or in a trade or profession closely linked to it, were also now becoming accustomed to dealing with wind turbine valuation.

He said the big issue on tenanted farms where wind energy was to be produced was how to divide the dividend arising from this renewable energy resource.

Every case had to be considered on its own merits, he said, but as a general guide the feeling was that about 25 to 30 per cent of the income should go the farmer, with the balance to the landowner.