Site for Building

Hi Folks,

What are my options in the following scenario:
I had agreed to buy a site of 7 acres to build on (pending planning) for 200,000 euro in October and paid a deposit. No contracts had of yet been forthcoming from the vendor - As of last week the auctionner contacted me to inform me that due to large tax bills being received by the vendor that the vendor had changed their mind and now were adamant that they wanted to sell the whole piece of land (14 acres) as Agricultural land as they need the money ASAP. I have first refusal and the whole 14 acres will cost in the region of 180,000.

My question is how can I finance this sum of money (I have checked out the possibility of planning through informal inquiries to the planning office and am happy that the risk is minimal). Banks/EBS etc. will not finance without some kind of planning agreed - so what are my options?

Thanks.

You could apply for outline planning approval on the land, then use this to approach a mortgage providr. This is effectively applying for planning in principal only, whereby the local authority agree to give outline planning permission to a scheme taht will be later designed / detailed to compkly with their development plan requirements.

"Banks/EBS etc. will not finance without some kind of planning agreed - so what are my options?"

They won't give a homeloan mortgage, but €180k for 14 acres is les than €13k\acre - not all that much above straight agricultural price in many parts of the country, and indeed below it in some.

Banks lend for land purchases all the time. It should be possible for you to get money if you have adequate income and can make a well put together proposal to the bank. This will not be as cheap as a homeloan, but when you get planning, you can always refinance.

If I had more time thats the approach I would have taken - but in reality the vendor will put the land up for auction if I cant raise the cash in 2 weeks. We really want to secure this site as we had even started with an architect on house sketches.

What are the other ways that Agricultural land is bought if not through mortgages?