Companies operating these schemes are looking for investors to buy plots of land in areas which have not yet been granted planning permission, and may be in Greenfield or Greenbelt zones.

They offer to handle the planning permission application process for the plot-owners/investors. They claim that once owners are granted planning permission they can sell the whole site to a developer for a substantial profit.

You may be called up out of the blue and invited to invest your money in these schemes or you may see adverts in journals, newspapers and mailshots.

If you have been approached by a landbanking scheme please Contact us.

Although the FSA does not regulate land as a specified investment, there is a risk that many of these schemes are in breach of our rules if they are structured as collective investment schemes.

Firms operating collective investment schemes should be authorised by the FSA and appear on our Register - see Check our Register.

Ask the company if the scheme is a collective investment scheme. Generally these landbanking schemes are not authorised by the FSA.

If you deal with an unauthorised operator of a collective investment scheme you will not be able to use the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if things go wrong.

However, if you have agreed to take part in a landbanking collective investment scheme run by an unauthorised person, you may have a statutory right to recover your money and compensation for any consequent losses.

This is because agreements which an unauthorised person enters into while operating, advising on or arranging a collective investment scheme cannot necessarily be enforced. You should contact the operator of any such scheme and/or a legal adviser to find out about your rights.

See our Landbanking schemes in the UK statement on our corporate website.