Mobile home enforcing RPI
If a park owner refused to reduce the pitch fee and a resident chose to pursue the matter in court, this surely would be a very expensive course. Are the courts likely to award costs to the resident since the park owner should have been aware of the law?
I raise the question because the amount involved might be as little as £1.50 per month which would mean that the cost of going to court negates the benefit. The law may be on the side of the resident but the cost of principles could be very high, which would deter most residents from following that course.
Site owners of course have no such fears, they can afford the best lawyers. We queried the pitch fee when our site owner stated that he was keeping it the same this year, we pointed out what the law states. His response was that he would take it to court and then sell the site on, knowing that we had experienced major problems in the past with a bad site owner.
So the situation appears to be that no matter what the law says, without some Government body to enforce it, site owne
Mobile home and static caravan advice claiming back RPI
After reading your article in PH&HC about unlawful rent increases of five per cent on our park you said we could reclaim this amount back if we followed the correct procedure.
Would you tell me the correct and legal way to make this happen?
Mobile home and static caravan advice on road clearance
As a site owner I was very interested to read your reply to the letter in the PH&HC February 2010 issue regarding a gentleman and his wife asking who is responsible for gritting icy roads on the park.
The question always comes up on my site with our residents and we have consulted our solicitors, who advised us to leave as it is.
Mobile home and static caravan advice on warranty
We bought our ready- sited home from the park owner. Since moving in we found that we could not get a 10 Year Gold Shield Warranty certificate. This is because we bought the home from a company that has since gone into administration. We were not told about this at the time and feel the park owner should have told us before the purchase. When confronted the site owner told us he would get one sorted, but now they are saying we cannot have one because it was bankrupt stock.
The owner did tell us not to worry and if there were any problems they would be sorted out. My concern is we have nothing in writing. Do you think we could have a problem and can we do anything about it?
Mobile home & holiday caravan legal advice on parking space
I am living in a park home which is one of 200-odd homes. I would like to know how many visitors’ car parking spaces there should be?
We have only three here and not even a disabled car parking space. I think that is not enough.
Should there legally be more spaces available?
Mobile home and static caravan legal advice on broken agreements
In 2008 the owner of our park site and my wife and I shook hands on the agreement to buy a brand new sited park home. The agreement included a brick skirt round the base, steps and car parking space. All of which were honoured except for the car parking space, of which nothing has been done. Fortunately, parking is usually available but several residents have expressed concern because we have parked in the vicinity of their homes when no other option is available. The nearest parking spot to our home has a very large hole in the road and as cars have to plough through this hole it is indeed dangerous and several vehicles have thrown stones into the air, causing damage to our car.
Numerous requests to the site owner and our residents’ association have proved fruitless and the site owner simply refuses to do anything. What action can my wife and I take? We feel we should cancel our direct debit and refuse to pay any more ground rent until something is done.
We are now trying to sell the home but to no avail – the last viewers actually commented on the hole in the road which we believe put them off.
Mobile home & holiday caravan legal advice on outstanding work
After laying down a deposit for our park home, I was asked to pay the balance of £15,000 before we moved in.
There had been a lot of work promised to our site (e.g. a ramp, garden clearance and moving the visitors car park) but when we visited no work had been done.
On this basis I sent a cheque for £10,000 and retained £5,000 as some sort of security.
After a few days we went to see the site and still nothing had been done, the owner had disappeared and a new owner had taken over.
The new owner pays no heed to any prior agreements and gave the impression that any outstanding payments to the previous owner should be paid to him instead.
As for my outstanding £5,000 I have no intention whatsoever of paying the previous owner as he acted totally dishonestly with promises never fulfilled and I doubt he will pursue the matter but would like to know if this is justified?
The work that we were promised to our plot has still not been done.
The new owner has out of the blue sent his electricity bill (the first we have ever received) plus maintenance charges. I have declined to pay it as no such charge had been levied on my neighbours in the past. Am I right to do this?
Mobile home and static caravan legal advice on drainage
We moved in to our park home and encountered a serious problem when we flushed the toilet as it did not clear properly and some waste matter came back up through the bath and basin plug holes.
I informed the site representative and he arranged for a company to call us. The cause was in the drainage system under the home and was not due to incorrect plumbing or a fault in our home.
In order to gain access to the pipework two sections of the brick skirting had to be demolished.
After the job was done the site representative said we must pay for the work, which came to £200. I was under the impression that the drainage system under the home was his responsibility. When I mentioned this to him he said that they had not been responsible for any of the plumbing on the park site as they had bought the park when everything was in place.
Am I right in thinking that it is down to the park’s management to carry out the work, both of clearing the blockage and reinstating the brickwork at their expense?
Preparing your mobile home for sale
Selling your mobile home is much the same as selling a bricks and mortar property. Make sure your home is always looking its best for prospective buyers by following these simple golden rules.
Living on a holiday site
We have had a lot of problems on our park. We were sold our home to live on for 11 months with the promise of the park owner applying for an extension to his licence.
At no time were we told it was to be used as holiday home only.
We have formed a committee and approached planning aid. We have paid £5 to pay for the planning application, which will be heard in the next few weeks. Even if we get 50 weeks it doesn’t alter the fact that the council have stated ‘this is a holiday site and we suspect these units are being used as permanent homes’.
But as they are being lived in for 11 months we will have 11 months’ full band A council tax, despite the fact we are already paying for several services in our ground rent. Also our site owners have just increased our ground rent by five per cent. We have shown them articles in PH&HC regarding rent decreases due to the RPI being negative and their reply was ‘this is a holiday site and we are not governed by the RPI.’
We would welcome your view.
