AN AMNESTY allowing tenant farmers to have the value of any farm improvements they have made put onto the official record of their tenancy is nearing its end – but more than half of them are still to make a start on the process.

The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association has been moving heaven and earth to publicise the amnesty, which began in June 2017 and will expire in just over six months on June 12, 2020. Describing it as 'key' to the future viability of some tenancies, the association's leadership was this week struggling to hide its incredulity that so many tenant farmers were showing so little enthusiasm for the opportunity.

The amnesty, initiated by landowners' body Scottish Land and Estates, has been hailed as one of the main benefits to tenants in Scotland's 2016 Land Reform Act. It created a mechanism enabling landlords and tenants to make a definitive record of improvements, even if proper reporting procedures were not followed at the actual time of those improvements.

STFA is ow warning that its experience of the amnesty process suggests that it takes at least six months to complete – so anyone not making a start in the next few weeks was likely to run of time and lose this one-off chance.

Issuing this stark warning, STFA chairman Christopher Nicholson said; “We have spent the last week meeting and talking to tenants up and down the country and it has become plain that although most of those who attended the meetings had either finished their amnesties or were working at them, they are in the minority, and the vast bulk of tenants have not even made a start.

“The importance of the amnesty cannot be stressed enough. Not only is it a once in a lifetime opportunity to make good some of the mistakes of the past and ensure that investments made by generations of tenants are officially recognised, but it is also key to using many of the new provisions in the 2016 Act and to the future of your tenancy," said Mr Nicholson.

“For example; an agreed list of tenants improvements and other works are crucial for transferring the tenancy to the next generation and for receiving end of tenancy compensation; the new rent test is based on what the holding can produce with what the landlord provided and will depend on an agreed list of improvements and fixtures so they can be disregarded; and, thirdly, knowing who owns what is vital in the event that either the tenant buys out the landlord’s interest or vice versa.

“In short, there will never be another amnesty and future generations may well live to regret that their forebears neglected this golden opportunity to put everything in order. We would strongly urge all tenants to make a start immediately.”