Selling Your Land FAQs

Private land and property owners with land who want to discretely dispose of their sites.

We do not work with agents who are not retained by a client and are seeking a fee from a purchaser.

It is a lot more complex. Obtaining planning consents can be difficult and slow, and a lot of preparation and thought is needed prior to submitting a planning application. We take the hassle out of the process.

There can be a number of sensitive issues around selling land, e.g. adjoining parties who may not want development in the vicinity.

There are often planning issues that need to be worked through: from ‘sight lines’ and ‘ransom strips’, to ground conditions, title conditions and services, all of which can have an impact on the land value. You also have to work through the planning process with the planners! See our model GRAEMSTOP.

In any case, the process is not like selling a house, it is much more complex, and there are only a limited number of parties who will buy land. You don’t need to go ‘high and wide’ with marketing your site.

We recommend that you don’t jump into approaching your Council planners. Planning authorities now wish to comment during a pre-application process. This can be costly and needs a lot of investigation and thought.

Also, if the land is not allocated (zoned) in the Local Plan, Councils ask landowners and developers to submit sites to a ‘Call for Sites’ exercise. This may happen only once in 5 years and requires much investigation and research to prepare a case.

Tom Rankin trained as a Chartered Surveyor valuing and surveying residential property. He moved to the housebuilding sector and worked in the land purchase teams of major housebuilders, including Taylor Wimpey, Barratt Homes and Balfour Beatty where he held senior land acquisition roles.

Tom then set up Prime Land (over 25 years ago) having seen a gap in the market to dispose of land quietly without carrying out a fully advertised marketing campaign and to help builders purchase land.

It depends on a number of factors including the Council area but could take as long as 18 months to 5-6 years, and longer for strategic land (land with long term potential).

It may be. We will check if there is a precedent of developing rear gardens in your area. Also, the access road needs to meet Highways standards. We can check what other planning consents there are locally.

Not normally, but they may do if the land already has planning consent.

Around 1.2 acres with passing traffic and close to public transport for staff.

2-3 acres on a busy traffic route.

A minimum of 30 acres.

Most significant development land is valued by the residual method: the gross sales value less the developer’s profit and the costs including developer contributions. These costs include everything from construction and other build costs, professional fees, to funding costs. See Development Land Valuation.

Yes! We have the GRAEMSTOP Model (see the section on Solving your Site’s Issues to release value).

That depends on the total area – also must have good levels of passing traffic for visibility for Care Home use.

Yes! Please contact us. We can assess the issues.

Please contact us to discuss this.

Firstly, we can bring a buyer to the table, or secondly, you may want us to discretely approach a few parties on your behalf. In the first situation we will secure a fee from the purchaser.

In the second situation we would have an agreement for a fee when the site is sold plus an ongoing fee during the period leading to the sale, depending on circumstances. It can take more than 18 months or longer to achieve a sale. It takes much longer than a house sale which can take weeks. There is considerable work to be done leading up to a sale.

Prime Land Consultants’ clients are:

• Care home operators.
• Property developers and investors.
• Retail operators.
• Retirement village operators.
• Housebuilders.

Yes, we will if this land has good potential.

Yes, we will, providing it meets our requirements in terms of size and location.

Yes, we can bring together various end uses, including redevelopment for retail use. Mixed use sites can be complex and time consuming.