Imagine if you had a landowner who came in and took your ground. Just took it, never thought to mention it, continued to charge you rent for it, did not compensate you for it, ignored you, prevented you from accessing your land which you pay full rent. Good land. In fact, the best land.
Imagine too that in order to recompense your loss in income through crop yield becoming reduced, you want to diversify in another area but this is also 'out of bounds' and you only discovered this a few days ago, much to your gobsmackedification.
If you were successful with your plans to diversify, you would have to pay the landowner a percentage of your income. You do the work, you make the investment, landowner gets the money *if* you get his permission to diversify in the first place. I may have mentioned this before but lest we forget.
Lest we forget to doff cap.
Now imagine, and I know this is a far stretch of the imagination, but just imagine they did this *because they can*!
Imagine too, that because of an 'agreement' written in the late Nineteenth century, you and the generations who follow you are still bound to this agreement, regardless of social change, human rights or progress.
Cures for disease may have evolved, men may have been to the moon, women may get the vote and equal pay, tolerance and equality begin to surface but somewhere in a little part of the world, there is a time warp .
And here is the best bit.
Imagine the same agreement states that "yearly and free of charge five days work of any kind by one pair of horses and one man by suitable carts to the aforementioned Station (said station was closed during the Beeching cuts but what the heck)...." and you are legally bound to such a demand in 2011 !
Imagine that this is not the rule of some wayward despot in a far away country but closer to home......uncomfortably closer to home.
Just saying.
So which, if any, organisations exist to help you?
ReplyDeleteNone that are interested, the fly.
ReplyDeleteIncluding the government, it would appear.
The government are all in bed with the landowners, you won't get anything from them. You scratch my back... etc. I bet there are vested interests of such complexity between the landowners and the gov that nothing will ever get done. All they do is talk out of their big fat slobby arses.
ReplyDeleteI know of no other industry whereby such blatant theft occurs apart from banking.... which leads directly to your point, Sarah ;)
ReplyDeletePut up a post on Broowaha....ask for support and action.
ReplyDeleteAm having slight problems with the site, the fly, but have registered and am attempting a post. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteAre there any loop-holes you can use in return? If you become a registered charity or a religious cult can you be exempt? Doing my best to think outside of the lines here.
ReplyDeleteThe way the agricultural law lies is that you can fight for your land back but receive no compensation (and this has gone on for years) or receive compensation but not get your land back. It cannot be both.
ReplyDeleteWe have looked in to the more unorthodox solutions but ultimately the law stands regardless.
It beggars belief that we are still bound by a patently obvious, one sided 'agreement' written 120 years ago which is breathtaking in it's arrogance, oppressive in the extreme and is tantamount to slave labour.
But it's theft, surely?
ReplyDeleteThe law needs to be changed, how about a demo on London to bring this to the attention of the public? We're in the mood to start making demands now, we're all sick to death of being treated as disposable commodities. We are the people!
If you do decide to demonstrate let me know and I will join you
Mouse, Scottish Agricultural Law moves at the pace of a snail on sleeping tablets and appears morally devoid where the tenant is concerned and no matter how much this is swept under the rug, one day the rug will hit the roof due to all the filth under it.
ReplyDeleteTo you and I, if it walks like a duck and looks like a duck.....
To those on the other side of the fence, it is a pheasant.
Sometimes I realise how fortunate we are: our landlord and letting agent are permitted into the apartment once a year unless we invite them, and they have to make an appointment at our convenieice with at least 24h notice.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't stop them trying other tricks, but at least we have that protection.
And did I understand correctly, that the rent isn't a flat rate but a percentage of what you earn?
Germany used to have problems like this, but thankfully after the war a lot of the laws were redrafted and the big estates broken up. The landlords were generally told "That's an interesting piece of paper with all those agreements, but you're obviously too arrogant and irresponsible to be trusted, so we're passing the land out to lots of people, rather than just you"
Having dealt with a couple of landlords who made life difficult even with the tenency laws protecting us, I can only sympathise.
Yes, that is correct, workbike. The amount is not a flat rate but a percentage of your earnings.
ReplyDeleteYou take my breath away so often, it's a wonder I'm still alive! Incredible.
ReplyDeleteThe arrogance takes my breath away too, Rosie but I am writing this blog to illustrate what goes on here.
ReplyDelete