Information for professional advisors, including
solicitors, lawyers, accountants and agents.
Assessing Farm Businesses for the Single Payment Scheme
Professional advisors, such as accountants, lawyers and solicitors with farming clients who wish to change the ownership and/or structure of their farming business (or businesses) need to be aware of the European Union (EU) legislation applicable to Single Payment Scheme (SPS) claimants’ businesses.
Under the EU Regulations, a single SPS application has to be made per ‘farmer’ as defined in the regulations for this purpose.
In order to make an application the farmer must have eligible land on a ‘holding’ within the EU, hold the appropriate entitlements and carry out an agricultural activity. A ’holding’ represents all the production units (eg. land) which is managed by a farmer within the UK.
Farm businesses can change for a number of reasons and Rural Payments Agency (RPA) relies on farmers and advisors to inform them of such changes. This enables RPA to assess the effect if any the changes will have on the business in terms of its structure for Integrated Administration and Control (IACS)/SPS purposes.
If the ownership or members of a farm business has changed and those changes have not been assessed by the RPA please contact its Customer Service Centre (CSC) on 0845 603 7777 and choose the customer registration option. For RPA to assess the effect of a change of ownership, a change of members, a merger or split of business or if the business or an individual member has an interest in another farming business, an IACS 26/27 form will need to be completed. This form will be sent once the CSC has been contacted.
If a change of ownership of entitlements has to be made, a form RLE1 has to be completed and the change has to be notified to RPA by 2 April in the scheme year for which they wish to make a SPS application. This is because a transfer of an “entitlement to claim payment” takes six weeks to be processed and the deadline for submitting SPS applications without penalty is 15 May.
Further information and examples are shown on our website www.rpa.gov.uk On the front page follow the Single Payment Scheme link, then the link to Single Business assessment.
Notes:
1. RPA was established on 16 October 2001 as an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). RPA is responsible for the CAP payment functions formerly delivered by the Defra Paying Agency and the Intervention Board.
2. The Single Payment Scheme (SPS), was introduced by EC Council Regulation 1782/2003, replacing most existing crop and livestock payments from 1 January 2005.
3. A ‘farmer’ is defined as a natural or legal person or group of natural or legal persons, whatever legal status is granted to the group and its members by national law, whose holding is situated within Community territory and who exercises an agricultural activity. Generally a farmer is an individual or group of individuals who form a business, some examples of this are a sole trader, limited company and a partnership.
4. A holding means all the production units managed by a farmer situated within the territory of the same Member State.
5. For more information, see www.rpa.gov.uk
6. Media contact: Ciaran Baker, RPA Press Office, 0118 968 7680
Page published: 28 February 2008
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