Succession, tenancies and who applies for permission

Anyone can apply for planning permission over land they do not own. Permission attaches to the land, not to the applicant, so a farm tenancy planning application can be made by the tenant, by the landlord, by a developer with an option, or by all three at once. What the law requires instead is notice: the applicant must certify who owns the land and who holds it as an agricultural tenant, and must have served the prescribed notice on each of them.

Get that certificate wrong on tenanted farmland and the permission is open to challenge years later, when somebody finally reads the file.

Who may apply for permission over tenanted land

Section 65 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and article 13 of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 set the framework. There is no requirement to own or control the land, and no requirement to have the landlord's consent before applying.

That surprises tenants and alarms landlords in equal measure. A landlord can apply for permission to build houses on a field let on a lifetime tenancy, and the tenant cannot stop the application. A tenant can apply to convert a building they occupy but do not own. In both cases the planning authority decides on planning merits, and the private law position is a separate matter between the parties.

Permission, once granted, can be implemented only by someone with the legal right to carry out the works. So a permission obtained over a let holding is a planning asset with a contractual obstacle in front of it, which is why the sequencing in the private agreement matters more than the application itself.

Notice to the landlord and to the tenant

The duty is to give notice to every person who, 21 days before the application, was an owner of any part of the application site, or a tenant of an agricultural holding any part of which is comprised in that land.

Owner has a defined meaning here: the freeholder, or a person entitled to a leasehold interest with at least seven years unexpired. A ten-year farm business tenancy with eight years to run therefore makes the tenant an owner for certificate purposes as well as potentially an agricultural tenant.

Notice goes on the prescribed form, and the certificate options are fixed.

Certificate A is the one that gets used wrongly. If any part of the field is let on a grazing agreement, if a strip of the access track belongs to a neighbour, or if a long lease sits over a building in the yard, Certificate A is false.

How tenancy type changes the position

Two regimes sit side by side on English farms, and they behave differently.

Tenancies granted before 1 September 1995 are generally governed by the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. They carry lifetime security of tenure, and for tenancies granted before 12 July 1984 there are statutory succession rights allowing up to two successions to a close relative, on death or retirement, through an application to the First-tier Tribunal.

Tenancies granted on or after 1 September 1995 are farm business tenancies under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. They run for the contractual term with no statutory succession, which makes the end date the dominant planning fact.

Succession eligibility and suitability under the 1986 Act were amended by the Agriculture Act 2020, with the changes taking effect in 2024, so take the current tests from the legislation as it stands rather than from older summaries. As at October 2026, that is the position to check before advising anyone about a succession application.

Grazing licences, contract farming agreements and share farming arrangements are not tenancies at all when properly drafted, but they are frequently drafted badly. If the occupier has exclusive possession of land for a term at a rent, the document's title does not decide the question.

Development that affects the holding

Where a landlord wants part of a let holding for development, the practical route under a 1986 Act tenancy is Case B of Schedule 3: a notice to quit may be given where the land is required for a use other than agriculture for which planning permission has been granted.

The order of events is the point. The permission comes first, then the notice to quit. Which means a landlord serving notice in anticipation of a permission has served it too early, and a tenant receiving a Case B notice should check the permission exists and covers the land described.

Under a farm business tenancy the position is contractual. Many include a landlord's break clause for development, and the drafting of that clause decides everything, including whether a resolution to grant is enough or a full permission is needed.

Part of the holding being taken out also triggers rent review and sometimes a right to serve a counter-notice treating the whole as terminated. Those are legal questions for a land agent and a solicitor, not planning ones, and they should be answered before the planning application is submitted rather than after it is granted.

Compensation and improvement provisions

Two separate strands of compensation arise on a 1986 Act holding.

Disturbance compensation follows a notice to quit for non-agricultural use, together with tenant right for growing crops, residual manurial values and similar items. The basic and additional payments are set by the Act, and the calculation is a professional valuation exercise.

Compensation for tenant's improvements is the strand that bites on diversification. New improvements generally require the landlord's written consent, or tribunal approval, if they are to be compensatable at the end of the tenancy. A tenant who builds a farm shop or a workshop without that consent may hold a planning permission and no compensation right. The same trap applies to the sort of schemes covered in farm diversification into workshops and offices and to equine enterprises, where the question of when horses become a business often arrives before anybody has looked at the tenancy.

Practical sequencing with the tenancy

A workable order of events on a let holding looks like this.

1. Establish the title position from the register, including any leases, options and rights of way.
2. Identify every occupier and the document under which they occupy, not the document the parties believe exists.
3. Agree in writing who applies, who pays, who owns the permission and how any uplift is shared.
4. Deal with consent for improvements before works start, where the tenant is the developer.
5. Serve the prescribed notices and diarise the 21 days.
6. Submit, with the correct certificate and a copy of each notice retained.
7. Deal with surrender, variation or notice to quit only once the permission exists.

Where the arrangement involves a short-season use rather than permanent development, the sequencing is lighter, and the day-count mechanics of something like the 60 day camping and caravan temporary use right can sometimes avoid the tenancy question altogether.

Avoiding a defective certificate

Knowingly or recklessly issuing a false or misleading certificate is an offence under section 65 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. In practice the bigger risk is civil: a defective certificate gives an aggrieved owner or tenant a ground to challenge the permission, and councils have revoked validations when a certificate is shown to be wrong.

Five checks that catch most errors.

• Order the Land Registry title and read the schedule of leases, rather than relying on memory of who farms what.
• Walk the red line on the plan and ask who owns each boundary feature and each metre of the access.
• Treat every grazing or keep agreement as potentially an agricultural tenancy and serve notice anyway. Over-serving costs a stamp.
• Check whether any occupier holds a lease with seven or more years unexpired, which makes them an owner.
• Keep a signed certificate of service for each notice, with the date, and file it with the application.

Where ownership really is unknown, Certificate D and a newspaper notice are the route, and the reasonable steps have to be real and recorded.

A clear Planning Statement that sets out the land interests, the notices served and the relationship between the applicant and the holding saves the case officer a week of queries. To work out which supporting documents your application is likely to need, enter your postcode on PlanScope and answer the guided questions.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and take separate legal and land agency advice on any tenancy question. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.