Does anyone know where to start looking to see what you can get grants for.

Where buying a little cotteage with 2 acres of land and hopefully another 8 acres soon and want to move an old shed/stable and garage and build a stable block, and later on a kenels and hopefully cattery.  Someone mentioned to us there could be grant available for changing the use of a farm/small holding buildings but not sure if this would apply?

Any ideas where to start?

Contact your local council. :)

I think it is harder to change use from agricultural buildings to other use as I believe different planning rules apply to buildings built for agricultural use. I know when we looked into buying an agricultural freehold property many years ago  the house could only be occupied by someone employed in agriculture or forestry but your solicitor would be able to look into this for you.

If you google the name of the council where the property is located you should be able to go to the relevant section to find out about grants and general restrictions in the area.

Yes - definitely worth talking to the local council Planning Dept. Musn't buy a property without finding out if planning permission is likely to be granted. Will also make a difference to the cost of the property if it it likely to be granted.

Did you see a TV programme recently where a lady bought an old builder's yard at auction wanting to put a mobile home on it (it was situated in the middle of fields). She couldn't get permission and the land was, therefore, almost worthless :( Always best to check first :)

Daisy

I think you may be thinking of farming diversity grants.  Don't think they have anything to do wiht the local council, I think it is DEFRA who handle them, but as far as I can remember,  they are based on existing farming businesses - don't know if you can get them without actually having been farming.
bye
Gwen

The first thing is to find out if the council will allow the change of use.

I would be very surprised if you got any grants unless it was something like this :)

Here

Only just read this thread.

Like JG says, contact your local council.

I bought a 200 year old cottage in Wales with 7 acres - which needed more doing to it than I thought - stupidly bought it outright, no surveys etc.  I had what I thought would be enough money to cover any renovation/changing costs.  It wasn't nearly enough. 
Went to my local council who said I would be able to get a grant after 3 years of living in the area.  After 3 years, I went back, and pushed them, they said I needed to be in the area for 5 years.  I've been here nearly 6 years now, and they're saying they only give grants after 7 years, if at all. 

So, I've given up - and I'm saving my pennies!

There are all sorts of grants available - I was talking to a friend recently who works for a council in Birmingham and she couldn't understand why I couldn't get some kind of help here, according to her, I would have in Brum!

It's different for different areas, but here it's been a nightmare.

I wish you the very best.

Don't know where in Wales you live, but in our area it used to be easy to get a grant, but the local builders and landlords were making a killing buying up all the cheap properties and doing them up on a grant,  then selling them/renting them out at a vast profit.  Measures were put in place and they simply bought properties in the names of family and applied for grants through family - so nothing changed :rolleyes:  then the council put in place the requirement to live in the property for a number of years before a grant would be considered and also to stay in that property for x number of years afterwards ;)  

When we bought our house, grants weren't available even after living in the property five years (council didn't have the cash), but we put our names down anyway.  Eight years later we got a phone call to see if we still wanted a grant :rolleyes:  The original was for just roof and windows, but when we were assessed the assessor said he could see that all our money had been going on repairs rather than prettying the place up ;) and we ended up with the full works :D  Mind you, by then we really needed it ;)

The first place to get info is the local council.   Good Luck!

Sorry to bring this back up again, but for Dill.....I'm in Ceredigion, West Wales.  I think pretty much the same thing happened here.  There was a policy that stated people who had grants couldn't sell for a number of years afterwards.
Now, it seems there are no grants at all here, from what I've been told:rolleyes: 

It seems a shame, as there are so many lovely properties in the area that would benefit.