Topic: Allotment rules and regulations

[bungat]

we are starting an allotment group in our village mainly all friends with my brother in law being the owner of the land. i would like to put things on a formal footing with some "rules" so everyone knows what is what. Can anyone point me in the right direction for advice or what the basic rules should be. I hope this is not a silly request. Our community is very strong and everyone has risen to the challenge we are all novices but it is really exciting to see everyone together.

Bungat

[cornykev]

Hi Bungat and welcome to the madhouse, it must be great for all the community to get together like this, are there any houses for sale in your village,  ??? I'm prepared to be the idiot, well I said it before someone else did, :P  nowdays neighbours don't even talk, I'm lucky that I have a few good uns, but all the community getting together for this project, anyway enough waffling from me, others will be along with sound information, good luck and keep us updated.    :)

[saddad]

Hi Bungat and welcome to A4A...
you could contact your ARI mentor... if you let me know where you are I can probably find his/her details
You could do a lot worse than contact the NSALG for their model rules...

David

[Unwashed]

There's no great need for formality in a tenancy agreement, but it is a good idea to have one.  I don't think it pays to go mad with the rules and regulations, though some basics are necessary - remember that if you make a rule you must be prepared to evict someone for breaking it, so don't make rules about trivial stuff.

There are some technicalities.  There's some quaint old common law about formally demanding rent, and even on non-council allotments parts of the allotments acts will apply.  Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 makes it necessary to write the agreement in plain language without any technical jargon, it limits your ability to make changes to the agreement and increase the rent, and it limits rules to things that do no more than protecting the legitimate interests of the landlord while at the same time considering the interest of the tenant.

I can't guarantee this is watertight, but it's a start, and better than some ;)

Allotment Tenancy Agreement
General
1. This Agreement is between us, Sometown Allotment Federation, and you, Penny Gardner.
2. We are leasing you plot No. 101 which is 10.0 poles in area. (1 pole is 25 square meters).
3. This is a yearly periodic tenancy from April 1st.
4. You can have as many gate keys as you want, but we will charge you a refundable deposit of £10 for each one.
Rent
 1. The pole rate is £4.50 per pole, so your rent is £45.00.
 2. We will increase your rent each year by the February all-items Retail Price Index (RPI).
 3. Your rent is payable in four quarterly instalments on the 1st April, 1st July, 1st October, and 1st January, though it helps us if you pay it all in one go on April 1st.
 4. We will send you a bill in March which will tell you the rent for the year and how much you need to pay on the quarter days.  We won't send you reminders for the other quarter days.
 5. After 40 days if you still haven't paid what you owe us we will give you a month's notice to pay, and if you haven't paid after that we will end your tenancy, whether or not we have posted a formal demand for rent at your plot.
Rules
1. We will send you a copy of the Rules each year with your bill, and we will display a copy on the site notice board.
2. We will try not to change the Rules, but if we do it will be because we have agreed with your site association an improvement in the management of the site, or because the change is necessary to comply with the law.  Where we can, we will give you notice of any new rules with your bill in March and those new rules will apply from the 1st April in the following year, so you have at least 12 months notice of any new rule.
3. For a trivial breach of the Rules we will try and speak to you so that you understand the Rules.
4. If we think you are breaking the Rules significantly or persistently then we will write to you and tell you what you must do to correct the situation.
5. If you believe that we are applying the Rules unfairly you may appeal to the complaints panel of your site association and we will consider their conclusion and make a final decision.
6. If we write to you about a breach of the Rules that can be put right, then we will give you a reasonable time to put the matter right.  If you haven't put the matter right within the time we give you then we will end your tenancy.
7. If we write to you about a breach of the Rules that can't be put right then we will give you an opportunity to pay us reasonable compensation for the breach.
Assignment
1. You will need our permission to assign your tenancy to someone else, though we will only refuse permission if that person wouldn't qualify to go on our allotment waiting list.
Ending The Tenancy
1. You can end your tenancy by giving us at least 6 months written notice that you want the tenancy to end on 31st March.
2. We have already described how we can end your tenancy if you don't pay your bill or if you break the Rules, but we can also end your tenancy by giving you at least 12 months written notice that the tenancy will end on 31st March.  We will only end your tenancy like this if we need to use your allotment for some other purpose.
3. Once your tenancy is ended you must leave the plot and take with you what you don't want to leave for the next tenant.  If it's your only plot you must give us back the gate keys, for which we will return your deposit.
4. If you don't leave your plot after your tenancy has ended we will begin court proceedings to recover possession of the plot.  If the court awards us a possession order you may have to pay court costs and if you have still not left the plot we will apply to the court to have the bailiff evict you.  We will dispose of anything that you abandon on the plot.
Signed, etc

Allotment Rules
1. You must use your plot as an allotment garden.  You must use it mainly to grow fruit and vegetables for your family.
2. We will inspect your plot in the second week of April, June and September, and it must be reasonably well cultivated and free of weeds and rubbish at those inspections.
3. You may keep hens (but not cockerels) and rabbits, and you may keep bees if you satisfy us that you have the necessary expertise and we agree that the arrangements are acceptable, but you may not keep any other livestock.  You must not allow your livestock to cause a nuisance and their welfare standards must be high.
4. You may have one shed no bigger than 8' x 10', and greenhouses and polytunnels of combined area no bigger than 10' x 30', and in addition to that any housing that you need for hens and rabbits.
5. You must not, neither yourself nor your guests, make a nuisance of yourself.
6. You must not dump anything in the common areas or on any other plot.
7. You must not obstruct the paths.
8. You must maintain the paths between your plot and your neighbours' plots.
9. You must not use barbed wire or anything else likely to cause injury.
10. You must keep your dog under control.  You must bag its pooh and dispose of it off site.
11. You must not use carpet as weed suppressant.
12. You may only start bonfires after either dusk or 6pm, and you must not leave a fire unattended.  Bonfires cause a lot of nuisance for site neighbours so you may only burn dry material that will make the minimum of smoke.  You must not bring stuff on to site to burn, nor burn anything which could reasonably be composted.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Rule 3 is conventional and in accordance with the Allotments Act, but it seems outdated and unreasonable to allow chickens and ban ducks or guinea fowl! Rule 12 is sensible, unlike Birmingham's rule that we can only have bonfires in March and November, which seems plain unreasonable to me.

[tonybloke]

here is our associations 'conditions of tenancy'
[attachment=1]

[Unwashed]

Yes Robert, I agree on both counts.  Rule three is pretty much a statutory minimum but I can't see much reason to limit livestock, and the rule doesn't allow pigeons which is very much a traditional allotment bird.

I've based it on several examples I've seen, but tried to word it in everyday English and keep it simple.

[Unwashed]

here is our associations 'conditions of tenancy'
[attachment=1]

Hi Tony

There are a couple of potential issues with your association rules, all to do with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCR).

The first thing to be careful of is making a rule that goes further than absolutely necessary in protecting the legitimate interests of the landlord, because that would make the whole rule unenforceable.  For example, take Rule 3:

3. The plot holder must cultivate and use the allotment garden for the production of foodstuffs and crops for the consumption by himself and his family and no other purpose.

This doesn't allow even the smallest bit of lawn or flower bed and there's no good reason to deny the allotmenteer these traditional indulgencies and so the fairness of the rule is open to challenge, and not just by someone growing a single tulip, but by the hairy-arsed builder who's using his plot as a builder's yard - UTCCR has some unexpected implications and it's really worth taking the time to understand the implications.

Rules must be in plain English, so you can't use jargon, and you can't incorporate statute by reference because the average allotmenteers won't know the allotment acts well enough to understand the meaning of the term.

For example, take Rule 11

11.  The tenant shall not keep any animals or livestock of any kind upon the allotment except hens (12) or rabbits to the extent permitted by Section 12 of the allotments Act 1950.

You'd have to be quite an enthusiast to have a working knowledge of S.12 Allotments Act 1950, and so incorporating this statute by reference makes the rule potentially unfair, and if it's unfair under the UTCCR you couldn't even enforce the Rule against someone keeping pigs.

An example of jargon is rule 13:

13.  If the tenant shall commit a breach of any of the terms and conditions herein contained and in particular shall fail to cultivate the allotment to the satisfaction of the association then the association by any of their officers or servants or agents may re- enter upon the allotment and determine this tenancy as Provided by section 1 (1) (e) of the allotments Act 1922

"Re-enter" and "determine" are both technical legal words that the average allotmenteer will not understand.  Just using the words leaves the rule open to challenge.

You also can't go further than allowed by statute.  I've seen plenty of site rules that ban all livestock other than hens, but because you have an absolute right to keep rabbits the rule is unenforceable and couldn't even be used to stop you keeping pigs and goats.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I know pigeons are traditional in some areas - I've yet to see them kept on an allotment - but given the mayhem the things cause, I wonder whether it's a good idea.

It sounds as though the ban on bonfires except in two specific months might be challengeable.

[bungat]

Thanks to you all for some very interesting comments I shall now go away and start to compile something. Happy digging.

[lavenderlux]

I think you would need to say how many chickens and/or rabbits one can keep on a plot (eg six per ten rod plot);  also if water is provided whether or not sprinklers are allowed. 
Also about car parking - eg cars must be parked on the designated area(s) and not on the trackway (or whatever applies).
Other things to possibly cover:
Deliveries of manure/compost:  you (or your representative) must be present whenever deliveries of manure and/or compost are made to your plot and you are responsible for making good any damage caused by the contractor.
You are required to keep your plot in a fertile condition and weed free.
On giving up your plot you are required to remove any shed and/or other permitted building and to leave your plot in a tidy and rubbish free condition
Children must be supervised at all times when on the allotments

[chriscross1966]

I don't think you can set rules about chickens and rabbits, they're a statutory right, if you want to turn the whole thing into a chicken/rabbit farm then it's your choice....

The parking issue will run you foul of disability discrimination legislation (and rightly so) so tread carefully there..... generaly easiest to allow the conversion of the front of the plot into a carparking space.

No carpet or underlay to be used on site except as compost heap covers, proper geotextiles OK but the plot must not be covered for more than 10 months of the year and 8 months in a block.

Try to encourage bee-keeping, makes an amazing difference to bean productivity if there's a hive nearby....

No Gravel/ cobble stone to be used for paths, slabs are OK, decorative glass should be banned (seen beds lined with wine pottles before, look lovely for a couple of years but then a hard winter or a little toerag of a vandal smahes them adn the plot is covered in broken glass.....

chrisc

[saddad]

I don't think you can set rules about chickens and rabbits, they're a statutory right, if you want to turn the whole thing into a chicken/rabbit farm then it's your choice....

Yes but you are only allowed a few... I think four is the number for chickens..   :-X

[Unwashed]

I don't think you can set rules about chickens and rabbits, they're a statutory right, if you want to turn the whole thing into a chicken/rabbit farm then it's your choice....

Yes but you are only allowed a few... I think four is the number for chickens..   :-X

why would you think that?