Tenants face uncertainty over retirement as new rules delayed

Tenant farmers wishing to retire in the near future could find themselves deprived of benefits promised in Scotland’s 2016 Land Reform Act – due to the slow pace at which the new legislation is being enacted.

That was the claim made by the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association this week when it urged the Scottish Government to push some of these aspects up the agenda.

Rules surrounding the relinquishment and assignation of tenancies – designed to help older ten- ants to retire with dignity and to encourage tenancy succession – were, said the STFA, being held up by the current focus on finalising the new rent test.

STFA director Angus Mccall said that the implementation of some parts of the agricultural holdings sections of the Land Reform Act was proving to be more difficult and complex than anticipated – and it could take more than three years to to see some of the new measures come into operation.

In a letter to rural economy secretary Fergus Ewing he said that the current uncertainties over Brexit meant that many tenants were in the process of reviewing their position, often with a view to handing their tenancies on to someone younger– but the log-jam in the legislative process was stopping this happening:

“We are getting weekly calls from members and their advisers in this position and, bearing in mind the timescale required for relinquishing a tenancy and the need to work with bi-annual term dates, the years are slipping by and many these tenants will be deprived of the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits granted to them through the 2016 Act,” said Mccall.