My wife and I are closing in on buying a house in the canton of Vaud.
I think we’ve got a decent plan to avoid any pitfalls (getting a construction expert before finalising anything, getting the right mortgage for us etc.) but one thing is bugging me.
The house has a great view and it’s obviously factored into the price, but in front of it are many plots (10+) that appear to be agricultural or “green zones”. When asking the real estate agent, it’s the usual answer of “oh, this’ll never be built upon, it’s agricultural and it take 20+ years to dezone”. Obviously, to me this goes in one ear and out the other since they have all the incentive in the world to sell me anything, but I must admit I have no idea how to really check this.
Who can I contact to see if the dezoning process has started or not? Can I even “garantee” these plots will remain as they are for the next 20 years (at least)?
When I search who owns some of these supposed “green zones” or “agricultural plots” (geo.vd.ch), I sometimes get companies that are described in moneyhouse.ch as “Sector: Connecting properties to local public utilities/infrastructure”. Is this what I think it is: companies that work in the sector to make plots viable for construction?
If you have any other common pitfalls to avoid or things to check, please don’t hesitate in telling us, since this is quite a stressful acquisition.
It matters what zone exactly it is. Agricultural or others, which you should seen on the Zonenplan of your Gemeinde. Normally they are online.
After that you should know that also in agricultural zones there might be construction, eg stabels for the cows. But normally farmers avoid putting these new built close to a living area.
If a process to change the land use has started you should also get from the Gemeinde.
Nobody can promise you that there wont be a new built in the next 10j. Except maybe the current owner. You could make a contract with them and put it in the Grundbuch, sure it sill cost some $$.
Are you sure you did finde the owner in the geo portal our maybe only a „Dienstbarkeit“, a right that this company can put cabels etc in the ground?
Agricultural areas come with noise and smells that not everybody appreciates. Be sure to understand what that area near the plot is and what comes with it.
If you truly want to secure the view, you can try to buy the land before it or get a “sight” lien on it defining how high any construction on them can be. I know of no people who would sign it voluntarily and I don’t see a scenario where you could force it, but you may try.
There is no guarantee that the land will stay unbuilt in the forseeable future.You can check if it is classified as usable agricultural land (Surfaces Agricoles Utiles (SAU) in French) which gives it more protection (the Canton has to replace them if they loose their agricultural status) though, then again and as stated by newhere, there are agricultural constructions that could be built on it.
To my knowledge, zoning should be revised every 15 years (as part of the “Plan d’affectation communal” (PACom). Land affectation can change then. As stated by newhere, the Municipality would know whether changes are envisioned in the area, though whether they would communicate it to you or not may not be straightforward. It could become a residential area but could also become an industrial/artisanal or sports one. Projects vary, the Municipality may reclassify the land at any time for a specific project though the process usually takes years and you’d then have a say in it, provided you have voting rights there or that you can argue being directly affected by it. I doubt loosing the view would win in courts but I’m not a real estate lawyer.
Can’t answer regarding the owners. You’d need to cite the names of a few and even then, chances are I wouldn’t know them.
Go in person (or call, but a visit is always easier) and ask at the La Direction de l’urbanisme et de l’environnement (or the equvalent in your commune)
They will show you to a huge map with all the zones and individual parcels, and you can ask exactly what the plans are for certain parcels.
They can tell you what the plan is today and what could follow years later, but there will no guarantee.
In Switzerland there is never a “view guarantee”
The agent is correct, if it is an agricultural zone it could take 20 or more years for the zone to converted and later developed.
The only land that can not be developed is federal land with protected status (vineyards, forests etc).
Communes can be very flexible on giving permits and converting green zones in order to get funding and infrastructure kept up to date.
Doesn’t apply in your case, but one way (probably the only way) to guarantee a view is to buy a plot with neighbouring areas that are simply unfit for building (e.g. river, steep slopes, nature reserve, etc.), or would be prohibitively expensive to build on.
It is also worth looking at migration/demand patterns in the area. In municipalities with little demand for new building land, the likelihood of agricultural land being rezoned to building land is much lower. This is especially true if the municipality has already met or exceeded its quota for secondary residences. The downside, of course, is that renting out the property will be difficult or impossible, so it’s only a sensible proposition if you will permanently use the property as your primary residence.
no. you can’t guarantee this and you will find posts on this very forum where people bought such houses with soothing words from the estate agents only to find later on that the land gets developed.
the only way to be sure is to own all the land between you and your view ensure that there is no land in between e.g. right on the lake side.
@newhere I confirmed with the commune and it’s all agricultural and they confirmed there are currently no plans to change that. I guess I’ll just have to be checking regularly to see if there are plans to change it in the eventual future.
@Wolverine Thanks for your point about agricultural “nuisances”, in this case it’s just fields - at least for now. This is the response I got from the commune: “nous vous confirmons que ces parcelles sont affectées à la zone agricole et qu’il n’est pas prévu de les rendre constructibles dans notre révision du plan d’affectation communal”. I believe the PACom was done in 2022, so if your 15years number is correct, I at least have 12 more. I’ll see if I can find how often it’s revised for sure, unless you have the link on hand - I’d appreciate it!
@rew342343 Yeah, I ended up doing exactly that with the commune and for now it’s still classified as agricultural and there is nothing planned, so I guess I’m OK for the near future.
@Daniel Thanks, that’s a good point about migration/demand. I’ll look into it!
I understand there’s no certainty, but at the very least I’d like to be somewhat sure that in the next 10 years I’m safe from that. For now, considering it’s all agricultural land and was revised a few years ago, I seem to be in the clear.
Mit dem Lesen und der Teilnahme an diesem Forum bestätigst du, dass du die Forum-Richtlinien gelesen hast und damit einverstanden bist sowie den Haftungsausschluss auf http://www.mustachianpost.com/de/ akzeptierst.
