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Standing timber valuation

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Standing timber valuation

Postby RogerS » 16 Jun 2021, 08:16

Some folk might find this interesting.

There is a very small area of standing timber and for various reasons I needed to know the nett value of the standing timber (after costs etc). So I engaged the services of a professional and this is his report. There were quite a few things that I'd not considered/realised such as a felling licence and replanting costs.

From my measurements today you have
Japanese Larch 14 trees giving 28.05m3
Lawson Cypress 6 trees, 6.13m3
Norway spruce and Douglas Fir- 1 tree of each totalling 0.61m3
and Lime/Oak/Sycamore/ Birch/ Goat Willow/Ash and Elm 23 trees totalling 42.97m3

This gives a total of 77.76m3 or about 60 tonnes
At current market prices, and allowing for harvesting costs I estimate the present value to be in the region of £1130. Due to the small quantity, if I maximise the breakout I end up having to pay high haulage rates for part loads which gives me an overall lower value, so I have priced it all as either hardwood firewood or conifer chipwood sold to Egger at Hexham.

I have attached a brochure from Forestry England regarding the requirement for felling licences. Within reason gardens seem to be exempt but this could be at the discretion of the FC Woodland Officer. Otherwise you can fell 5m3/ quarter without a licence, and with no obligation to replant.

The cost to replant the area using native broadleaves in 1.3m shelters will be about £500 (excl VAT). The stock fence would need to be improved to keep the stock from damaging the young trees.


Over the last few years, we've been taking down trees to open up the woodland and let some light and air in. Never, ever thought that we might have needed a Felling licence (we don't as the 5m3/quarter rule applies)
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby AJB Temple » 16 Jun 2021, 08:39

Is that really only £1130 net for 60 cubic metres ?
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby RogerS » 16 Jun 2021, 08:43

AJB Temple wrote:Is that really only £1130 net for 60 cubic metres ?


Yes but only for this small area. If you were looking at a proper plantation where you'd get a harvester in and large timber lorries then a much better price.

In this instance, you can only send in a chainsaw team and do it that way. Stick it onto a trailer and take it away for processing.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby AJB Temple » 16 Jun 2021, 08:48

Is it not worth getting in a portable mill or are the trees too small to harvest beams and planks?
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby 9fingers » 16 Jun 2021, 09:15

Useful report if you are needing to show its has virtually nil value but not helpful if you are trying to supplement your pension. :lol:

You need to get a small Irish company involved.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby RogerS » 16 Jun 2021, 09:53

AJB Temple wrote:Is it not worth getting in a portable mill or are the trees too small to harvest beams and planks?


I'm not going to fell them. Bob was pretty bang on with his comment as nil value was exactly what I was hoping for.

OK..here's the reason. For the last twenty years, where we lived was slapbang in the middle of farmland and we had our own 3/4 mile drive that skirted the farmers' fields. We got on really well with the farmer, meals, pubs, helping each other out. That sort of thing. For the preceding twenty years, we lived in a house that was directly across the road from the neighbouring farm and again got on with Caspar, the farmer, like a house on fire. Four years ago we upped sticks and drove to the other end of the country and now realise that our neighbouring farmer is the farmer from Hell.

There are just the three properties up here at the end of the No-Through road and our house used to belong to the farm but subsequently sold on in 1978. TOAS as I like to call him (Turd-On-A-Stick) has effectively acted like the entire area was his own private little fiefdom. He did what the Hell he liked, when he liked and never got any pushback because previous owners were simply too lazy or scared. We like to get along with neighbouring farmers. Proof positive - the last forty years. This one ? He lies. He goes back on his word. He lets his sheep roam free and come onto our garden. He has threatened to cut off our mains power. He thinks he can come up our drive any time he wants with his sheep (he can't). So it's all going to get legal.

Among many other things, we have discovered that he put a fence up in the wrong place simply because it was easier and so hived off some of our land. Yes, I know all about adverse possession but it's never as cut-and-dried as some would believe. It's this land that has the standing timber. In discussions with him about the incorrect fence line he wittered on about the value of the standing timber.

I can now tell him (and the judge) that it is worthless.

With regard to his incorrect assumption that he can drive sheep through our land, how that will work is that our solicitor will write to him telling him to desist. He will ignore that. We then take him to court. We win. He gets a Court order to desist. His character is such that he will ignore the Court order which, to my great delight, means that he has now made a criminal offence.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby AJB Temple » 16 Jun 2021, 10:08

Ah, I see. Good luck.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby Trevanion » 16 Jun 2021, 10:25

RogerS wrote:With regard to his incorrect assumption that he can drive sheep through our land, how that will work is that our solicitor will write to him telling him to desist. He will ignore that. We then take him to court. We win. He gets a Court order to desist. His character is such that he will ignore the Court order which, to my great delight, means that he has now made a criminal offence.


Well, that depends whether he actually has a right of way over your land, which may be in his and your deeds, so your legal hoohaa might result in just more costs for you if you haven’t done your research and are just going off your own assumption that his supposed assumption is incorrect.

We have a right of way to move livestock right over the neighbours driveway at any time as we own the fields on both sides of it and there are gates on both sides at one point of the driveway and we’re allowed to drive livestock up their driveway to these gates, we don’t own livestock so the right of way has never been used but it is in the land deed. We also own a 12ft x 10ft section which is the entrance to their driveway for some reason, and they don’t actually have right of way over this weirdly. Any trouble and I’ll just put a two tonne boulder at the entrance :lol:
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Standing timber valuation

Postby TrimTheKing » 16 Jun 2021, 10:36

Trevanion wrote:
RogerS wrote:With regard to his incorrect assumption that he can drive sheep through our land, how that will work is that our solicitor will write to him telling him to desist. He will ignore that. We then take him to court. We win. He gets a Court order to desist. His character is such that he will ignore the Court order which, to my great delight, means that he has now made a criminal offence.


Well, that depends whether he actually has a right of way over your land, which may be in his and your deeds, so your legal hoohaa might result in just more costs for you if you haven’t done your research and are just going off your own assumption that his supposed assumption is incorrect.

We have a right of way to move livestock right over the neighbours driveway at any time as we own the fields on both sides of it and there are gates on both sides at one point of the driveway and we’re allowed to drive livestock up their driveway to these gates, we don’t own livestock so the right of way has never been used but it is in the land deed. We also own a 12ft x 10ft section which is the entrance to their driveway for some reason, and they don’t actually have right of way over this weirdly. Any trouble and I’ll just put a two tonne boulder at the entrance :lol:


Deed of grant of easement I think that is called, or was for when we lived in the barn across the road.

The 12’x10’ section is commonly known as a ‘ransom strip’ for obvious reasons, to which you’ve alluded. Something added in by landowners to retain an amount of control over who can buy/use the land. Sounds like it shouldn’t be allowed, but it is.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby RogerS » 16 Jun 2021, 10:50

Trevanion wrote:
RogerS wrote:With regard to his incorrect assumption that he can drive sheep through our land, how that will work is that our solicitor will write to him telling him to desist. He will ignore that. We then take him to court. We win. He gets a Court order to desist. His character is such that he will ignore the Court order which, to my great delight, means that he has now made a criminal offence.


Well, that depends whether he actually has a right of way over your land, which may be in his and your deeds, so your legal hoohaa might result in just more costs for you if you haven’t done your research and are just going off your own assumption that his supposed assumption is incorrect......


Title Deeds have already been checked by our solicitor. No RoW
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby Blackswanwood » 16 Jun 2021, 13:41

You have obviously had legal advice Roger so presumably not applicable in your case but to expand on some of the earlier posts a right of way doesn't need be recorded in the title deeds.

If someone has crossed a piece of land regularly for twenty years without the owner objecting they can claim a right of way by prescription.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby RogerS » 16 Jun 2021, 14:12

Blackswanwood wrote:You have obviously had legal advice Roger so presumably not applicable in your case but to expand on some of the earlier posts a right of way doesn't need be recorded in the title deeds.

If someone has crossed a piece of land regularly for twenty years without the owner objecting they can claim a right of way by prescription.


Yes, I'm aware of that, thanks Robert. He's certainly not done it in the last four years !
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby Eric the Viking » 18 Jun 2021, 10:07

Blackswanwood wrote:You have obviously had legal advice Roger so presumably not applicable in your case but to expand on some of the earlier posts a right of way doesn't need be recorded in the title deeds.

If someone has crossed a piece of land regularly for twenty years without the owner objecting they can claim a right of way by prescription.


If permission is explicit in an agreement, which separately also acknowledges that a right of way does not exist, then I think it is correct that a RoW can't be established this way (i.e. by prescription)?

My parents had this issue in the 1970s. A chunk of our land used to be a stable & yard for the house next door (which was the Jacobean vicarage). It was offered to my father, so he bought it.

That land also had the only reasonable access to a paddock that adjoined the graveyard. The paddock had been farmland, but was bought by the PCC to become a graveyard extension.

Like Roger, we were on very good terms with the local farmers, but dad took precautions, getting a written agreement with one of them that they could have access through our land to the paddock (which the farmer leased from the PCC separately, for grazing ewes & lambs), but only on the basis this didn't create a right of way.

The arrangement worked well, and didn't cause issues when dad sold the stable yard with building consent in the mid 1990s. There's now a "cottage" where the stable once was, so access to that paddock via that route would be impossible now.
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Re: Standing timber valuation

Postby Blackswanwood » 18 Jun 2021, 15:00

Eric the Viking wrote:
Blackswanwood wrote:You have obviously had legal advice Roger so presumably not applicable in your case but to expand on some of the earlier posts a right of way doesn't need be recorded in the title deeds.

If someone has crossed a piece of land regularly for twenty years without the owner objecting they can claim a right of way by prescription.


If permission is explicit in an agreement, which separately also acknowledges that a right of way does not exist, then I think it is correct that a RoW can't be established this way (i.e. by prescription)?

My parents had this issue in the 1970s. A chunk of our land used to be a stable & yard for the house next door (which was the Jacobean vicarage). It was offered to my father, so he bought it.

That land also had the only reasonable access to a paddock that adjoined the graveyard. The paddock had been farmland, but was bought by the PCC to become a graveyard extension.

Like Roger, we were on very good terms with the local farmers, but dad took precautions, getting a written agreement with one of them that they could have access through our land to the paddock (which the farmer leased from the PCC separately, for grazing ewes & lambs), but only on the basis this didn't create a right of way.

The arrangement worked well, and didn't cause issues when dad sold the stable yard with building consent in the mid 1990s. There's now a "cottage" where the stable once was, so access to that paddock via that route would be impossible now.


That is the safe way to prevent it arising Eric. If you walk around the City of London many offices have inserts in the pavement showing the boundary of the land that the adjoining building is built on. There will also then be a sign (probably quite small) just pointing out that the landowner is letting people cross their land as they use the pavement but it doesn't imply any right to do so.

Our house has a strip of land between it and the road that was gifted by Oliver Cromwell to a nearby estate. The house was derelict and had been lived in by a recluse for several decades when we bought it. We had to gather evidence that the previous owner and his family had crossed this strip of land unimpeded for twenty years to establish that we had a right of way.
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