The person named included four land parcels on his 2001 area aid application which were also claimed by another herd owner. Both herd owners were written to and the matter was resolved in favour of the other herd owner. The person named applied for a total area of 60.05 hectares but an area was found of only 47.92 hectares. This resulted in an area over-claim of 12.13 hectares or 25.3%.
Under the EU regulations, no penalty is applied when the over-claim is less than 3%, the penalty is based on double the difference when the over-claim is between 3% and 20% and when the over-claim is greater than 20%, a 100% penalty must be applied. Therefore in this instance, a 100% penalty applies and no area aid linked payments, including suckler cow grants, can issue to the applicant.