This may have been caused by remote sensing inspections, or proactive land change detection. It is unknown how many claimants may be involved. The RPA has said parcels of land may have been merged incorrectly where:
- There is a clear obstructing boundary between them, or
- They are being claimed on by more than one customers and the boundary between them is identified by marker posts or similar.
Farmers and agents are being urged to check the data and submit an RLE1 by 17 March where mistakes have happened.
An RPA statement said: ‘We will continue to make changes where only one customer is affected. However, we have amended our process so that where more than one customer is affected by a merge, the changes will not be made until they have been checked and confirmed with those customers.
‘Where land parcels have been merged, either before the above change in our process or as a single-owned parcel, customers and agents should submit an RLE1 form and sketch map to request that the merged land parcels be split again.
‘Where this request for a split in the land parcel involves land owned by more than one customer, submit only one request and include a covering letter to confirm that all parties have agreed to the correction.
‘Completed RLE1s, sketch maps and covering letters must be submitted by post and we must receive them by 5pm on 17 March 2017. We will then make every effort to correct the land parcel information by the end of March 2017 to support land transfers and related land check completions before 2017 BPS online applications are submitted.’
The agency added that requests received after 17 March 2017 may require an amend to the online claim to reflect the correct position, as the RPA may not be able to action the changes before the BPS 2017 application deadline.