Transfers of agricultural properties

Name: Transfers of agricultural properties
Topic: Agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

County and centrality / industrial link.

Annually.

Not relevant

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose is to show the development over time of registered transfers of agricultural properties. Transfers of agricultural properties are regulated by legal framework and a large share of the transfers take place within the family. Agricultural properties vary in size (agricultural land, productive forest and other land categories), standard on buildings and location.

The main users are public and private sector agencies, research and educational institutions and media.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The quarterly statistics on registered transfers of real property also include figures for transferred agricultural properties. However, only properties where agriculture is reported as the purpose of use on the deed of conveyance are included in these statistics.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

Not relevant

Including 2010, the statistics comprise properties in the Farm Register of the Norwegian Agricultural Authority with at least 5 decares owned agricultural area and/or at least 25 decares productive forest area. As from 2012 the statistics are based on new cartographic data analyses and data on owners and properties from the cadastre in combination with data from the Farm register. Figures for 2011 are not published.

An agricultural property may comprise one or several cadastral units within a municipality. Each cadastrial unit is identified by a number and one of the numbers are choosen as the main number, in most cases the unit with buildings. A registered transfer may also comprise one or several cadastral units, and the lowest number is chosen as the main number of the property. A property therefor may have different main number in these two registers.

The agricultural properties and the registered transfers are first merged by the main number. For agricultural properties not merging by main number, each cadastral unit are merged with the rest of the transfers. If agriculture is given as a purpose of use on the deed of conveyance, or the cadastral unit has a code for agriculture in the register, the transfer is included in this statistics.

A registered transfer does not only comprise ordinary sale, but also donation, compulsory sale and eminent domain, licensed decedent estate, inheritance of decedent estate and other. A transfer can also comprise one or several cadastral units. For properties with more than one owner, a transfer can also be a part of a property. The same agricultural property can be transferred several times during the same year.

Transfers of agricultural properties representing a purchase price / value exceeding NOK 20 million are not very common, and the number of such transfers varies between years. This will lead to considerable variation in average purchase price from one year to another. As from 2009, transfers where the purchase price exceeds NOK 20 million are not included in the calculation of average purchase price. As from 2013, this limit is NOK 30 million. Corrections are also done for transfers that only comprise parts of a property and for transfers of properties with building merged to a property without building. These corrections are only done to make the average purchase price comparable and will not influence the number of transfers.

Corresponding corrections are also done for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

The statistics is built on the Agricultural and forrest properties from the statisitcs "Agricultural Properties" and data from the Register of Deeds (Grunnboka), the Cadastre System (no: Matrikkelen) and the Central Population Register.

Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority is responsible for the Register of Deeds.

The statistics are built on registers.

A large number of controls are done during the process of merging the registers: Controls of duplicates, manually check of transfers with large values, coding of different units and controls of illogical data combinatons.

Not relevant

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

The statistics are prepared annually back to 2000. Figures on the properties´ buildings and settlement are prepared for 2000 and annually from 2006.

Agricultural properties comprise considerable areas and building resources, with and without industrial activity. Changes in the legal framework may cause changes of importance due to settlement, industrial activity and other activity on agricultural properties.

In the period 2000-2009 the Concession Act is changed three times. In 2001, the upper area limit for dispensation from concession requirement for transfers of agricultural properties changed from 5 decares to 20 decares. In 2003, the corresponding upper area limit was changed to 100 decares, of this 20 decares or less cultivated agricultural area. In 2009, the upper area limit remained 100 decares, while the upper limit for cultivated area was changed to 25 decares.

The most recent legislative amendments in 2017 included a number of changes to the Concession Act, the Land Act, and the Allodial Rights Act, among others (relating to concession requirements, allodial land, price controls, subdivision of properties, and the obligation to cultivate land). Among other things, the acreage threshold triggering a requirement for a concession was increased from 25 to 35 decares of fully cultivated or surface-cultivated agricultural land, while the acreage threshold for forest land was abolished. In addition, price controls on pure forest properties and on developed forest properties exceeding 500 decares were removed. Most of these amendments entered into force on 1 September 2017. The removal of price controls on pure forest properties may lead to a substantial increase in the prices of such properties.

From 1 June 2025, price controls have been reintroduced for pure forest properties, regardless of the size of the area. Furthermore, an acreage threshold of 500 decares of productive forest land has once again been introduced for the application of price controls when acquiring a developed forest property.

Errors may arise when data are entered into administrative registers. Errors may also occur while different registers are merged during the data processing. For example: various date for upgrading the register information.

Registering a transfer in the Register of Deeds is voluntary, but only an insignificant share of the transfers are not registered.

There is also reason to belive that some small agricultural properties are not registered or have lacking data in the Farm Register.

The statistics are based mainly on information reported in connection with registration of title to property and thus considered to be reliable. Misclassification of type of property and type of dwelling may occur. Lacking information of unproductive areas in the Farm Register, results in no opportunity to classify agricultural property transfers by the propertys total area.

In 2009, controls are done by means of the national population register to inquire whether the property is sold within the family or not. Family includes spouse, children, brothers, sisters, parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles. In 1964, personal identification number was introduced. Even several natural persons who died before 1964 have got a number. The older a person is the harder it is to find a link between parents and their children. In some instances the lack of personal identification number will make it difficult to check the relationship between the old and new owner, especially when the former owner is sister or brother of one of the parents of the new owner.

A transfer can have more than one buyer and one seller. In this statistics, the relationship is only checked for one seller and one buyer. This person with the largest owner share is chosen. If two persons have identical owner share, the oldest one is chosen. About 70 per cent of the transfers have one buyer, 20 per cent have two and 10 per cent have three or more. Especially properties transferred as inheritance of decedent estate have three or more new owners.

Not relevant