Agricultural occupiers

Agricultural Occupiers’ rights

‘Agricultural occupier’ is a term used to describe agricultural workers who rent their homes from their employer and have gained certain housing rights. It can be quite complicated to work out if you are an agricultural occupier. This page can help you find out if you are classed as an agricultural occupier, but you should get help if you are unsure or at risk of losing your home.

Please note that if you are self-employed or have your own business on agricultural land that you rent, you probably have an ‘agricultural holding’ or a ‘farm business tenancy’. This will apply even if you live in a building on the land covered in the agreement. Advice for these types of agreements is not included on this page, and you should check Gov.uk guidance for further information.

If you moved in on or after 1 December 2022

If you are an agricultural worker and moved into a rented home provided by your employer after 1 December 2022, you are probably a service occupier with a standard occupation contract. This would normally mean that you are required to live at the property to do your job. This type of contract usually has different rules about eviction.

However if you do not need to live at the property to carry out the job, or if it was optional accommodation offered by your employer, then you may have a standard occupation contract that is not a service occupancy. Please visit our Renting advice pages for more information.

If you did move in on or after 1 Dec 2022 you can’t be classed as an ‘agricultural occupier’ and the rest of this page does not apply to you. Please visit our Renting advice pages.

Get help if you are at risk of losing your home.

If you moved in before 1 December 2022

If you are an agricultural worker and moved into rented accommodation provided by your employer before 1 December 2022, you could be classed as an ‘agricultural occupier’. You must meet certain criteria, which are outlined below.

Qualifying as an agricultural occupier means that you have gained certain rights in relation to your accommodation. For example, if you have agricultural occupier status you can only be evicted for specific reasons.

How do I know if I am an agricultural occupier?

You are an agricultural occupier if you meet certain conditions relating to the type of home you have, who your employer is, and the job you do. These are:

The type of home you have

You must live in a self-contained home provided by your agricultural employer. This could mean that your employer owns the property or has made arrangements with the property owner for it to house its’ employees.

You can still gain agricultural occupier status if you pay little or no rent.

However, you will not be an agricultural occupier if you share living space with your landlord, or if you rent a single room and share living space with 3 or more other people.

If your landlord provides services such as cleaning your home, you will not be an agricultural occupier, but you could still be an agricultural occupier if your landlord only provides meals.

Who your landlord is

Your landlord must be your employer and own the home you live in or have arranged for someone else to supply your home so that you can do your work.

If your employer or landlord is the royal family or certain other government departments you will not be an agricultural occupier. If this is the case, check whether the employer or landlord has given you extra housing rights in your employment contract. If you are unsure about your housing rights, get help. You may have stronger rights than you think.

You can still gain agricultural occupier status if your employer became the landlord after you moved in or started working there.

The job you do

You have to be an agricultural worker while occupying your home.

This means the following:

• you work 35 hours or more a week (unless you have a permit to work shorter hours because of injury or disease caused by agricultural employment), and
• you must work, for at least some of the time, with things like crops, livestock or forestry. Maintaining tractors and other equipment on the farm is included in this work. Just working on a fish farm, keeping animals mainly for sport, or working in a research station do not count, and
• you have been employed in agriculture for 91 weeks within any period of 104 weeks. It doesn’t matter when you carried out this qualifying period of work. Time from previous employers can be counted, as can time when you were on paid holiday or sick leave. If an industrial injury stopped you from working before you had worked 91 weeks, you will still pass this test.

You will still gain the rights of an agricultural occupier even if your landlord or employer is exempt from paying the minimum wage.

I meet all the conditions, but I am not working any more

Once you become an agricultural occupier, you will keep that tenancy agreement or occupation contract, even if you lose your job. You may have retired, been sacked, been made redundant or given up your job, or you may not be able to work because of sickness – it does not matter. You are still an agricultural occupier and you will still have all the housing rights this gives you.

What if I don’t meet the conditions?

If you don’t meet the agricultural worker conditions but live in a self-contained home owned by your employer, pay rent and you need to live in the home to do your job, you are probably classed as a service occupier with a standard occupation contract.

If your landlord is the council or a housing association, you should have received a special notice called an RHW1 informing you that you have a standard occupation contract. If you did not, get help because you may have stronger housing rights than you think.

There are special rules about evicting service occupiers and you can only be evicted if your landlord gets a court order.

However, if you share living space with your landlord or you don’t pay rent, then you may be an excluded occupier. If this is the case, you must be given reasonable notice before you have to leave, but your landlord won’t need to get a court order to evict you. If you received a special notice called an RHW1 then you might have a standard occupation contract which gives you stronger rights. If you do have a standard contract, then how much notice you must be given will depend on whether you need to live in your home to do your job.

If you do not need to live in the home to do your job and you’re not sharing accommodation with your landlord you probably have a standard occupation contract.

Get help if you are unsure about your rights or at risk of losing your home in any of the above circumstances.

I meet all the conditions – what sort of renting agreement do I have?

Click on the option that applies to you below