Received an offer to invest in undeveloped land in a foreign country, with the potential to double, treble or multiply your money in a few years? 

Attractive as this may sound, consider carefully before you part with your money.   Even if you are presented with financial reports showing the possibility of consistent and high returns for the investment, or testimonials of how other investors have benefited from land banking, take a step back and consider what the risks are.  This is critical.

After all, where there is an opportunity for you to make some money, there is always a chance that you can lose some or all of your money.  There is no free lunch.  In the case of land banking, you may have seen media reports about investors losing money in land banking schemes in various countries.  Some schemes have also turned out to be scams!

(Via MoneySENSE. To read the full story, click here)

The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills has presented petitions in the High Court to wind-up, in the public interest, five companies involved in marketing plots of land as investment opportunities.

The petitions to wind up Pemberton International Limited, Eldon International Limited, Willow International Limited, Allied Investment Management Limited and Abacus Investment management (London) Limited were presented following confidential enquiries carried out by Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985, as amended.

(Via CreditMan. To read the full story, click here)

Double, treble or multiply your money even further – and all within a few years. It sounds an ideal alternative to low-interest savings and high-risk shares, especially, as the promoters point out, "They're not making land any more".

Gains like these are held out by "landbankers", unregulated firms that buy land without planning permission to sell to investors in small slices. Purchasers are led to expect the field will get the go-ahead for housing development, seeing it explode in value.

But the winners are the promoters rather than the investors. Typically, landbankers buy land for under £10,000 an acre and then cut it up into plots of one-tenth of an acre. They sell these plots to investors for £8,000 to £16,000 each – earning them around £80,000 to £160,000 an acre.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

Two former directors of Hambrook and Greenstock AG have been disqualified for 12 years, after admitting to deceiving UK investors in a £5m scam.

The two Swiss-based company directors, Andres Schenker and Claudia Daxelhoffer, deceived UK investors into paying more than £5m in a 'land-banking' scam.

(Via FT Adviser. To read the full story, click here)

Specialists in the property industry are warning consumers to be wary of companies selling plots of farmland that they claim will soar in value if reclassified for housing.

Speculation about housing shortages and government-funded building programmes has led to a sharp rise in the number of sales of plots to amateur investors this year.

Companies known as land bankers buy cheap farmland near built-up areas, usually for no more than £5,000 an acre, even though it is zoned as green belt and has no planning permission for development. They then repackage the land into small parcels, sometimes of only a tenth of an acre, which are sold at up to 20 times their original purchase price.

(Via the Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

The former boss of a land banking company has been disqualified as a director for seven years following a Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) investigation.

(Via Planning Resource. To read the full story, search here)
(See also: Director banned over land sales @ the Telegraph)

(If you have had any dealings with Land Banking (UK), please get in touch via email or post a comment.)

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24 (Bernama) -- The Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) today raided three companies suspected of offering investments in illegal land investment schemes.

The raids were conducted simultaneously at the UK Land International (M) Sdn Bhd, Profitable Plots Sdn Bhd and Edgeworth Properties (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.

The companies had allegedly contravened sections 94 and 363 of the Companies Act 1965.

In a statement, SSM said it had conducted surveillance on the companies over the past couple of months.

(Via Malaysian National News Agency. To read the full story, click here)

Investors who bought plots of Finchampstead farmland on the basis of exaggerated claims they could triple their money are facing an uphill struggle to get their money back.

The investors, mostly from overseas, bought plots of land at Church Farm in Finchampstead Road for up to £20,500 from landbanking company UK Land Investments (UKLI).

However, an investigation by administrators winding up the activities of UKLI has found the land was in fact owned by another company, Regents Land, and was one of four sites in the UK owned by the firm which attracted hundreds of investors.

(Via The Wokingham Times. To read the full story, click here)

If you are one of the people who bought a plot of land off Finchampstead Road in Finchampstead from UKLI, The Wokingham Times wants to hear from you.

Call on (0118) 9366 188 or email.

Thank you.

A group of landbanking companies that sold sites where "there was no prospect of planning permission being obtained" has been would wound up in the public interest following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Cheltenham-based Land International and three subsidiaries, all controlled by Michael John Morris, 60, and Stephen Nicholas Meissner, 45, began trading in early 2004 when they bought greenbelt land. It was subdivided into plots of around a tenth of an acre which were sold to some 700 investors, pulling in an estimated £10m.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

The founder of a landbanking company that Guardian Money first featured three years ago, and which has left a £70m trail of debt, has reopened for business in Dubai, selling plots of land in Kent it calls Canary City to unsuspecting investors.

BBC Radio 4's Face the Facts will show how Baljinder Chohan, founder and owner of UKLI, has moved his operation from Berkeley Square in London to Dubai, and continues to sell the dream of turning tiny slices of agricultural land into sites with planning permission worth a fortune.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

IN JANUARY 2006, I flagged up the emergence of a new industry which was about to become a financial scandal.

Tipped off by a reader to investigate land banking, I was concerned by promises being made by bogus property investment companies.

At the time I wrote: "Spiralling property prices have begun to spawn a new rip-off industry.

"One scam is the sale of small plots of agricultural land which, the sales companies claim, may get planning permission and increase in value by up to 300 per cent.

"The websites look professional and include reports from august bodies talking about the increase in land values. But what they don't say is that many of the plots of land are overpriced, in remote areas with no services and will never qualify for planning permission."

Two years later, the extent of this fraud is beginning to emerge. The financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), recently asked the High Court to wind up the UK's largest landbanking company - UKLI Limited.

(Via the Scottish Daily Record. To read the full story, click here)

Britain's financial services watchdog is looking to shut down UK Land Investments (UKLI), the country's largest "landbanking" company, which has been the subject of Guardian Money warnings.

This will leave 4,500 investors with slices of virtually worthless farmland. It now appears that many might have avoided losses if the Financial Services Authority had listened to fraud squad requests to shut it down in 2005.

The FSA will ask the high court to wind up UKLI for operating as an illegal "collective investment scheme", thereby denying investors protection. The FSA says investors poured £69m into the firm, which sold small plots of "selected" farm land, claiming it could get planning permission for housing so the site would soar in value.

Investors are unlikely to get anything back from the liquidation as almost all the cash was soaked up in commissions and payments to directors and shareholders. But Guardian Money can reveal that fraud specialists at the City of London police were convinced UKLI was operating against the public interest when it first probed the Mayfair-based firm three years ago.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

Leeds MP, Greg Mulholland, has expressed his delight that the FSA has called upon the High Court to wind up the UK’s largest land investment company UK Land Investments, after Mr Mulholland wrote to them to highlight serious financial irregularities in the way in which UKLI conducted business. 

Mr Mulholland wrote to the FSA back in May of last year, after UKLI’s Charted Accountants Moore Stephens resigned citing a number of suspect practices, including the ‘loaning’ of huge sums of money to affiliates of the UKLI, principally the former Director of the company Mr Bally Chohan, and subsidiary companies operating at a considerable loss.

Commenting Mr Mulholland said:

“I am delighted that the FSA is taking action to bring the dodgy dealings of UKLI to an end.

“As I raised with the FSA back in May of last year, there were a whole array of serious financial irregularities in the way in which UKLI was conducting its business.

“It has taken some time but finally UKLI will not be able to take any more money from unsuspecting investors, many of whom put their life savings into these types of scheme in the hope of a substantial return which never materialises.

“However, the problem of land banking does not stop with UKLI, the whole industry should come under much closer financial scrutiny.”

(Via Liberal Democrat press release)
(See also: Greg Mulholland writes to UKLI; 3 December 2006)

Update: Listen to Mr Mulholland on BBC Moneybox, broadcast 7 June 2008.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has asked the High Court to wind up the UK’s largest 'landbanking' company, UKLI Limited (UKLI), for operating as an illegal ‘collective investment scheme’ (CIS) and denying its investors protection for their money.

UKLI advertised and sold plots of land to people by claiming that it could get planning permission for the land, which would increase in value and make investors a large profit once it was sold to a developer.  As a result, about 4,500 investors paid UKLI £69 million to buy the land.  None of the land sold was ever granted planning permission.

(Via FSA press release. To read the full story, click here)

An illegal landbanking scheme which sold plots of land to investors with the promise of big profits has had its assets frozen following action by the City watchdog.

UKLI Ltd bought up large chunks of land and divided them into small plots, which it sold on to investors.

Around 4,500 investors paid the firm £69m for 5,000 plots, which it claimed it could get planning permission for. These could then be sold on to a developer at a profit.

But none of the land was ever granted planning permission, leaving the investors with plots that were virtually worthless.

(Via The Guardian. To read the full story, click here)

An FSA spokeswoman confirmed that operating an illegal investment scheme would be covered under criminal offences in the UK but declined to comment on whether any criminal investigations or charges had been made in relation to UKLI.

(Via The Times Online. To read the full story, click here)

In the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division)

Companies Court     No 2684 of 2008

In the Matter of UKLI LIMITED

(Company Number 04656772)

and in the Matter of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000

and in the Matter of the Insolvency Act 1986

A Petition to wind up the above-named Company of UKLI Limited, Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London W1J 6BD, presented on 1 April 2008 by the Financial Services Authority, 25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS, will be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL, on 26 May 2008, at 1030 hours (or as soon thereafter as the Petition can be heard).

(Via The London Gazette. To read the full story, click here)
(See also: FSA’s land firm petition at getwokingham.co.uk)
(See also: Guardian - Capital letters 26 April 2008)

Tony Hetherington replies to a reader's letter on land banking.

Investors in United Land Holdings - the "landbanking" company whose stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition 2006 was shut down by the Department of Trade - have learned they have no legal title to land they thought they had bought.

In all, investors paid in £5m - around £10,000 to £15,000 for each small plot of agricultural land they purchased, convinced by ULH that it could get planning permission for housing, so multiplying their money many times. Now they have nothing, not even a narrow strip of farmland.

(Via Guardian Money. To read the full story, click here)

New curbs to protect High Streets and block out-of-town superstores are to be at the centre of the Government's overhaul of planning laws.

Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly will next week announce that all councils will have a right to reject any application that has a negative impact on town centre retailers.

The planning White Paper, to be published on Monday, will also make clear that Ms Kelly has rejected recommendations to allow more building on the green belt.

The independent Barker Report last year triggered uproar among conservationists by suggesting that rules could be relaxed to allow developers to build on green belt land. But Ms Kelly has decided against any changes.

(Via ThisisMoney.co.uk. To read the full story, click here)

The Office of Fair Trading came under pressure today to investigate firms that 'scam' consumers into buying small plots of rural land on the promise of high returns.

The watchdog received a formal request from Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland to launch a probe into landbanking - a practice which campaigners say rips off investors while carving up the countryside.

Landbankers offer clients small strips of land under the pretext that they will see the value of their investment multiply once planning permission is granted to build houses.

But in reality, consumers are often left counting the cost as permission to build never materialises and they are lumbered with a small slice of land which they have paid well over the odds for.

(Via ThisisMoney.co.uk. To read the full story, click here)

The chief City regulator has forced another landbanking company to shut its doors, leaving hundreds of investors with land worth a fraction of the price they paid.

Guildford-based Rubicon Estates, which bought fields at farmland prices and then sold small plots to investors at higher prices in the expectation of valuable planning permission being granted within "five to 20 years", has ceased trading following a Financial Services Authority enquiry. Its office is now empty and its website, which once promised a route to riches, has been taken down. The company is now in discussions with liquidators.

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)

The company [Land Heritage (UK)] took £5m from 700 investors in return for small parcels of farmland in Sussex and Lincolnshire. Liquidators Smith & Williamson have told them there is nothing left for creditors. LHUK was one of many "landbankers" who buy farm land at agricultural prices - £5,000 to £10,000 an acre - and split it into small slices, selling each 0.1 acre plot for £10,000 or more. The deal means landbank promoters can make upwards of £100,000 profit per acre without even a whisper of planning consent.

LHUK collapsed after the Financial Services Authority said it was a "collective investment" as the company - and not individual investors - would control planning applications and land sales. Collective investments must be FSA-regulated and LHUK was not authorised. The FSA told it unofficially it could avoid prosecution if it repaid investors. But the cupboard is bare.

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)

The Government is facing calls to crack down on landbanking firms that scam consumers into buying small plots of land on the promise of high returns that never materialise.

MPs and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) have launched a campaign to stamp out the practice amid concern that thousands of people have already been ripped off.

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)
(See also: CPRE Press Release)
(See also: The great landbanking carve-up)

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is launching a campaign to get the practice of "landbanking" regulated by the government.

There are 29 companies offering plots of land for sale, many of them in or close to green belt land.

The principle is simple. You buy up a piece of agricultural land, divide it into smaller plots, upwards of eighty square metres.

You then sell those plots, often via the internet, to investors, who are told they will get a healthy return when the field is eventually bought up by a developer.

But most of these plots are in areas which local authorities say are unlikely to get planning permission.

(Via BBC News. To read the full story, click here)

One of Britain's biggest landbankers has gone bust, leaving investors who paid a total of £7m for tiny slices of farmland, wondering where their money went. Land Heritage (UK) Ltd told 700 land purchasers this week it was going into liquidation on the "advice" of accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

It told them to direct future correspondence towards PWC. But when Guardian Money contacted the accountancy firm, it said it had never heard of Land Heritage (UK) Ltd.

"Whatever LHUK says, we have not been instructed by this company and will not be. We have not provided any formal advice and we have not billed the company for anything. We shall not be handling any liquidation - we have no relationship whatsoever with it," PWC says.

Whoever acts as liquidator, the end of LHUK destroys what slim hopes investors had of the firm turning their minuscule plots into potentially valuable housebuilding sites - or of getting any refund.

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)
(See also: thisismoney.co.uk)

A BRITISH company is offering Irish investors a little piece of English "countryside" with the promise of long-term profits — but the local council says the deal is pie in the sky.

Oakwood & Scott, a landbanking company, is selling plots of farmland at Tadley in Hampshire with a promise that they will be rezoned for development within 10 years.

This weekend it is exhibiting the sites at the Toys 4 Big Boys show in Dublin's RDS, where buyers are being encouraged to invest between €9,610 and €29,570.

Landbanking is a controversial process by which a company convinces customers to buy small plots of agricultural land with the promise they will make huge returns on their investment when it is rezoned. But Basingstoke and Deane borough council, the local authority for Tadley, say it is "highly unlikely" any developments proposed for the farmland will be allowed.

(Via The Sunday Times. To read the full story, click here)

LAND-investment firm PropertySpy has finally bowed to pressure and removed ugly markers blighting rural land between Wheathampstead and Harpenden.

PropertySpy, a St-Albans-based company in Upper Marlborough Road, buys Green Belt land and then sells it off in home-sized plots for "investment purposes". Despite the fact that there is no planning permission for a home and little likelihood of that changing, people are still persuaded to pay many times the agricultural value of the land on the off-chance of a change in planning policy. For example agricultural land currently sells for between £2,000 and £3,000 per acre while starting prices for PropertySpy plots of between 0.12 and 0.16 acres - sufficient for a three-bedroom house - start at around £14,000.

(Via the Herts Advertiser. To read the full story, click here)
(Picture: PropertySCAM)

It sounds like the perfect deal - buy a piece of the English countryside, apply for planning permission and sell it on to developers for a huge profit.

But scores of investors across the country have been tricked into handing over thousands of pounds for land that has no chance of ever being built on.

(Via BBC News. To read the full story, click here)

Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi

Plots of green belt land in England are being sold to Indians for thousands of pounds as one of the best ways to make money. They are being marketed on the basis that vast tracts of the English countryside would soon be covered in homes - and potentially make big profits for foreign investors.

Companies have taken out full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers and also blitzed prospective customers with text messages saying: "Plot available in UK London (sic)". Investing in England's green belt, according to marketing material seen by the Guardian, is "one of the best ways to create real personal wealth".

Landbanking firms typically buy fields for a few thousand pounds, divide them up, and then sell plots for £10,000 each on the basis that, with planning permission, they stand to reap substantial profits. However, local councils told the Guardian that "allowing homes to be built on the land would be contrary to all current, emerging and foreseeable planning policies".

In India, landbanking firms are largely unregulated, although some have been closed down. In London, the Financial Services Authority is concerned some schemes should be controlled because they are "collective investments".

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)

For years, land banking has been a solid and rewarding investment. It has reaped big dividends for big-names such as Bob Hope and Howard Hughes right down to small market-gardeners on the fringes of growing cities. All over the world people have got rich.

The investment theory is simple. Just buy a largish parcel of rural land – usually a few acres – as close as possible to a spreading urban sprawl. And wait a few years.

One day, the land will be needed for houses and, presto, its value will increase ten-fold – even more. Suddenly, you're a squillionaire. If you're lucky, you may have enough life left to enjoy your new-found riches.

Yes, land banking requires patience. Investors can die waiting. The cost of holding the raw land can also be crippling. Nevertheless, if income productive land can be found or if its cheap enough, land banking may be an excellent investment.

Provided you avoid the latest rash of conmen who are ripping-off thousands of small investors with their dodgy land-bank scams. All over the world people are getting ripped.

Via The Jenman Group.
Click to read the whole article.

One of Britain's biggest landbanking operations, Land Heritage (UK), has suspended operations, leaving question marks over £7m paid by 700 investors who bought small plots of farmland from the company.

The plots were sold to investors on the basis that they were likely to be granted planning permission - and potentially make huge profits.

The suspension of Land Heritage (UK) could be followed at other landbanking firms as investor watchdogs target these controversial firms.

(Via Guardian Unlimited Money. To read the full story, click here)

The residents of Hawk Green have had enough. They want the landbankers out of their village.

Their anger shows an often forgotten facet of landbanking - the effect on local communities when companies buy agricultural land in their midst and then sell it on at a huge profit.

Now Hawk Green, on the edge of Stockport and overlooking Greater Manchester's green belt and the Derbyshire dales, is mobilising. Local residents and their MP want the landbankers to shut up shop.

The landbankers are PropertySpy, based in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

(Via Guardian Unlimited Money. To read the full story, click here)

MYSTERY surrounds a plot of land near Tewin that appeared for sale on the online auction site eBay, writes Rob Gibson.

The business seller, who hails from Croatia, was asking for £80,000 for a half share in the acre of land. But the item failed to receive any bids at all, let alone the reserve price of £15,000.

The land is located in the Green Belt area between WGC and Hertford and the description boasted that it would sell for "well over £500,000" if granted planning permission.

It also claimed the land is part of a proposed future development of individual plot owners to create a new village, 'Tewin Grove' [link added by PropertySCAM].

But experts claim the site is unlikely to get planning permission.

(Via Welwin & Hatfield Times 24. To read the full story, click here)

PropertySCAM comments:

There's no real mystery here. It appears that an overseas investor who bought land plots has now realised that his investment is worthless and is trying to sell on his misfortune, or at least reduce his loss using eBay.

Expect to see more such offers on eBay before too long...

TM of London writes to This is Money:

I rather stupidly purchased two plots of Green Belt land for £10,000 each, under the assumption planning permission was very likely. I have now been told this is not likely. What should I do?

This is Money replies:

Unfortunately it seems that you were convinced to invest by the claims about planning permission being imminent on Green Belt land. In fact, it is unlikely these sites will get planning permission, as most local authorities strongly resist any attempts for building on the Green Belt....

(Via ThisisMoney.co.uk. To read the full story, click here)

STYAL'S greenbelt guardians welcomed new guidelines urging town halls to protect the countryside and get tough with land speculators.

In recent years the phenomena of 'land banking' hit Styal, with the company Property Spy buying up farmland at Birch Farm, Hollin Lane, and selling it off to investors in smaller plots as a long term investment.

Now the Local Government Association has published new guidelines urging town halls across the country to use every means possible to protect their green belt.

New guidelines urge councils to make use of all available legislation, including 'article four' notices, which severely restrict even small scale work on the land such as putting up fences.

It also advises councils to offer residents impartial planning advice as sites protected by planning law are extremely unlikely to gain permission for development.

In addition, the LGA says councils should monitor the activities of known 'landbankers' and inform trading standards or the DTI of misleading trading practices.

(Via the Wilmslow Express. To read the full story, click here)

It's the latest craze, but beware firms asking up to £200,000 an acre for land that may never be developed, advises Alexander Garrett

...It is a message that has been persuading gullible investors to part with thousands of pounds, with little likelihood that they will ever see a return on their money. There is also evidence that many of those who have succumbed to such marketing are ethnic minorities and recently arrived immigrants, who don't understand UK planning law.

...Anyone tempted by one of these investments should bear in mind the fact that there is not a single known example to date of a site divided up into small investment plots receiving planning permission for development - despite what any of the salesmen claim about their 'track record'.

...Some of the land investment companies have suggested that holding such a plot is a good investment in its own right, but the opportunity to re-sell is likely to prove elusive and, in any case, agricultural land is not quite the dynamite investment that many of the investment companies suggest. Hayden James, for example, claims on its website that 'land prices over the past 20 years have seen consistent rises totalling over 1,000 per cent with no signs of slowing'.

Estate agent Savills, which closely monitors prices of agricultural land, tells a different story. Ian Bailey, associate director for research, says: 'Prices have gone up by 25 per cent in the past two years, but that has been exceptional. Alongside inflation, land hasn't done well at all. Prices peaked in 1975 at around £4,800 per acre, and the average today is around £2,300.'

(Via the Observer. To read the full story, click here)

Officials from the DTI this week swooped on a controversial land investment company exhibiting at the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show following concerns about "landbanking" schemes first raised by Guardian Money.

United Land Holdings is one of the biggest of a new wave of companies which typically promise 1,000%-plus returns by selling investors cheap plots of agricultural land which they claim will be worth a fortune once planning permission is granted.

But today the two-floor United Land display at the Ideal Home Show - emblazoned "land investment made simple" - lies deserted and abandoned.

Exhibitors on adjacent stands said DTI officials swooped on Tuesday, halting trading and confiscating documents and brochures. Computer terminals lie idle, offices are locked and giant plasma screens are blank.

(Via Guardian Unlimited. To read the full story, click here)

ADVERTISEMENTS for strips of Green Belt land headlined "Plans for 25,000 homes are revealed" and with another line saying: "Plans to build thousands of new homes on greenbelt land on the edge of St Albans", are the subject of a complaint.

St Albans-based Property Spy, which sells off land speculatively for future development, made the claims in their advertisement.

Now the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority because there are no such plans...

"We are taking this matter to the Advertising Standards Authority to try to protect prospective buyers from being misled and stop our countryside from being staked out and despoiled by people bent on making a quick profit."

(Via the Herts Advertiser. To read the full story, click here)

A BID to build a house on Green Belt land which is guaranteed to be unsuccessful is the latest move in the battle to persuade people not to buy speculative plots of land.

Wheathampstead Parish Council is to apply to build a house on the land being marketed by Property Spy along Lower Luton Road between the village and Harpenden.

Parish council chairman Cllr Keith Stammers explained: "Once our application is refused this will appear on documents associated with the legal searches. We hope this will prevent potential buyers from going ahead with the sale."

(Via the Herts Advertiser. To read the full story, click here)
(See also: Planning permission refused at a plot site)

THOUSANDS of landowners are to be stung by a £3 billion windfall tax as part of a massive housebuilding programme to be announced by the Chancellor on Monday.

As part of the Government’s response to the Kate Barker report on housing, the Chancellor will also be pressing ahead with proposals to tax landowners who sell their land after obtaining planning permission.

(Via The Times On-Line. To read the full story, click here)

Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland, Leeds North West, today pledged to try to put an end to a property speculation scam that threatens Britain's greenbelt.

Greenbelt land is being bought up by so-called 'land bankers' who draw up plans for housing estates on these protected sites and sell them on at grossly inflated prices.

Sites in Mulholland's constituency are being sold for £18,000 - but are only worth £115.

(Via Liberal Democrats. To read the full story, click here)

Wycombe Council's planning committee has voted to pour a quarter of a million pounds of taxpayers' money into a fighting fund to save the countryside from being carved up by land speculators.

Cllr Hugh McCarthy, cabinet member for planning, says the council is ready to issue compulsory purchase orders if all else fails. "We are determined to act now to protect our countryside and whilst we are keen to negotiate to purchase these sites we will resort to compulsory purchase if necessary."

Tory councillor Paul Rogerson who represents Lacey Green, Speen and the Hampdens says ... "should the council be successful in issuing a compulsory purchase order, the amount they [the plot owners] would receive would be based on agricultural land prices and not development land."

(Via Bucks Free Press. To read the full story, click here)

PUNTERS are again being warned not to buy into a scheme offering prime Green Belt land it is unlikely they will ever be allowed to build on.

Nearly 100 individual plots at Home Farm in Stoke Poges, are being sold to prospective house builders.

They are promoted as an excellent investment opportunity for future development.

But planners at South Bucks District Council warned this week stringent rules protecting the land from building will probably never be overturned.

(Via icBerkshire. To read the full story, click here)

LAHORE: Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry, the Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice, has ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to launch a crackdown against firms illegally inviting people to purchase property abroad.

The chief justice, taking suo motu action, directed the FIA director general in Islamabad and the FIA deputy director in Lahore to check the activities of such firms.

The court took action after an advertisements by Messers Property Spy Plc, UK, was published in local newspapers.


(Via Pakistan Daily Times. To read the full story, click here)

Firms are buying tracts of farmland that have no planning permission then selling it on in smaller parcels to would-be developers.

Here's a sure-fire way to earn a shedload of cash - buy a nine-acre field for £90,000 and divide it up into small blocks and sell them for a total approaching £3.5m.

Now here's a less than surefire scheme to make oodles of money. Buy one of the aforementioned parcels of farmland and wait until it gets residential planning permission. Then - and only then - will the value soar.


(Via Guardian Money. To read the full story, click here)

Canadian entrepreneur Baron Deschauer is buying up the British countryside and selling it off in plots for huge profits. His customers are convinced they will be granted planning permission for lucrative housing. Others are not so sure. So, is it a scam? Saul Brookfield reports

There is nothing remarkable about the collection of fields to the east of the village of Collingham in Nottinghamshire.


(Via Telegraph Property. To read the full story click here)

When Baron Deschauer started to sell land at Groombridge, East Sussex, it brought a wry smile from local shopkeeper Andy Patel, as he had already had his fingers burned in a similar scheme several years before.

"I was fortunate," he says, "I only lost my £450 deposit. It was on a plot at a site in Surrey, which was heavily advertised. I went to have a look and made a down-payment with my credit card through the company's website."


(Via Telegraph Property. To read the full story click here)

In 2001 Hartwell Bond Ltd, a St Alban's based land speculator, purchased a Hertfordshire field of 20 acres from a local farmer for £100,000. Hartwell Bond Ltd then offered the field for re-sale in 43 separate parcels as "Investment Plots" through their associated company "Property Spy". Despite the field being within the Metropolitan Green Belt and over a mile from the nearest village of Kimpton, a little over a year later the land had been sold in small house size plots for as much as £80,000 per acre, realising a profit of well in excess of £1,000,000 for Harwell Bond Ltd!

To establish once and for all that the sites were not suitable for residential development in January of this year the Kimpton Protection Group applied for outline planning permission for a house on the field at Kimpton Bottom. Their aim was to obtain a definitive refusal.

St Albans City and District Council unequivocally refused their application on 8th March.


(Via Kimpton Protection Group press release. To read the full story, click here)
(See also: New ploy to beat Green-Belt sales)