On holiday and found out we are in somebody's private accommodation!

[reallifeboogie]

We are on holiday in the UK on a caravan park. Parkdean site. On arrival, went to the reception and was given our keys and told where our caravan is. All good. Caravan is much nicer than expected with some lovely personal touches that didn't expect such as pictures on the walls, blankets in a basket for sitting outside on the decking.
This was a cheap caravan booked through the Suns £9.50 offer.

There are dvds and children's games, cleaning products under the sink and other things that we presumed previous people had left behind.

Last night around 9pm a car pulled up (we are parked in the space for this caravan) and an irate couple got out and came to the door demanding to know why we were in their caravan. Assumed some mix up and they were guests in another caravan, and had got confused as the site is massive.

Long story short, turns out this is their own private caravan that they own and occasionally rent out to friends and family!

As it was late, reception was closed. Security guard intervened and the owners allowed us to stay the night and they would find a b&b.

At 8am they were back and we've packed up and left the caravan. Reception opened at 9 and all we are getting is "there has been a mix up"
We now have nowhere to stay until Saturday. We will go home but going cost us as we're on isle of wight so need sort ferry.

The caravan owners are trying to blame us and want us to pay for a deep clean and towards use of the gas etc we've used! They said surely we could see it was a private caravan.

That's great news @reallifeboogie but what are they doing in addition to that to compensate you for the distress and upset and disruption to your holiday? Don't let this lie they massively cocked up and need to do more than just give you a different caravan.

The owners have no right to blame you. You entered with keys supplied. Why would you question anything. It's not like they were actually living there when you arrived. Like half eaten meals on table, lights left on, tablets, phones, handbags knocking about.
You should be compensated or at least refunded by the park. If the owners badger you just block them.

I'm glad it's all sorted now.

This is 100% on Parkdean, who should never have given you the keys to the caravan in the first place, and the owner's beef should be with them not you.

If the caravan is really never let commercially then you'd have thought that Parkdean should have some basic systems in place to prevent this type of mistake such as colour coded keyfobs, and separate keysafes for privately owned & occupied caravans.

No way, not your fault! Totally the holiday park's responsibility. They should be paying you and the caravan owner compensation!

Many site do legitimately hire out "privately owned" caravans. We've done that before.

Blooming heck!

Is this the Away site? We had a similar issue with them and much to my shame, I didn't kick up the fuss afterwards I shoud have as I just didn't have the strength. But it was appalling. We were put in a caravan (well, cottage actually) that wasn't what we'd booked and was in an appalling state of repair and when I complained they shrugged and told me there were no other options.

Not your circus, not your monkeys - if they have a problem it is with the site. And the site should also be reimbursing you.

This happened to our caravan on a haven site!

We did let our caravan out through haven at the time however instructed them not to let it out in the school holidays as that time was for us.

We decided to travel late on a Sunday, and got there and there were a couple sat on the steps having a cigarette who looked absolutely confused.

3 kids were in bed and they'd brought their dogs, when we're strictly no dogs.

Customer services was closed, as was owners.

Security managed to find keys to an unoccupied caravan where we stayed for the night until the morning where both of us and them went to the reception to find out what had happened but it took some arguing because security said they can't just let people into random caravans and we almost ended up driving 80 miles back home.

The next day or 2 was spent scrubbing pen marks off the walks and hoovering dog hair from all corners, so it wasn't much of a break for us either.

Plenty of caravan sites have privately owned caravans, which the site owner rents out to guests via an agreement with the caravan owner. So nothing particularly unusual about being put in a privately owned caravan, and no reason for the OP so suspect anything out of the ordinary.

The fault is entirely with parkdean for putting you in that caravan OP. Send the owner in parkdean’s direction if they want cleaning fees.

Obviously OP you should be getting some sort of refund/compensation from parkdean too.

@reallifeboogie kick up a right fuss, cry, shout the lot. We stayed with this company a short while back and after a lovely morning out we arrived back to find our caravan had been towed away!!
straight to reception who confirmed the caravan had been sold - I was like good for you, what about all our stuff still in the caravan, how could let this happen etc etc. long story short they helped us pack all our stuff, moved us into another caravan, and gave us a full refund of the holiday cost - approx £700 (it was the 2nd day of a 7 night stay it happened)

Was it the Three Bears who turned up?

This will be a great story one day @reallifeboogie😁 Glad you have a new caravan, enjoy the rest of your holiday!

When DS were little we would always private hire a van at Haven. As described above they were much nicer then the usual standard, cheaper and we could choose the layout and location to our liking

It's good you are now sorted OP.
Welcome to the island and hope you have a fabulous time here.😎

While I would have questioned things a bit on seeing the photos and things in the caravan, it’s still definitely not on you because you took the keys from reception in good faith.

I hope the owners redirect their justifiable anger towards the reception staff.

OMG this illustrates that the av IQ is 100. The owners of the van need to put responsibility where its needed on the park administration. I'd be insisting the park find you somewhere to stay wtf. I'd also complain to the Sun.

I hope they find a solution. Do not pay anyone anything! x

I bet there is a nice little scam going on where employees who know where the keys are can arrange it so that they rent out caravans they expect to be empty and keep the money for themselves. So it may not be the site but rather a dishonest employee.

You need to not only get your money back but get compensation . Forget the owners , it’s not your issue at all .

i actually think you should push for more compensation as should the owners. It’s really shitty that no-one was there other than the security to sort things out last night. There should have really been a night manager or someone available to respond to issues or emergencies. I’d be also pointing that out in any complaint to head office. The owners shouldn’t have had to leave late at night for a b&b.

I had a family member had a chalet type thing on a holiday site like this. They lived a long way away but had it as close to other family. There was an agreement the site could rent it out and the owner would get a small fee. Never very many bookings shown but clear evidence it had been used between visits when they were told it had not been. So local family kept popping over to check and it was occupied loads. I think at one point the owners said stop letting it out and they kept doing it. This was years ago. I would have thought parkdean being so big would it scam like this but I know it's been happening for years

so glad it was sorted.

We rent our van out through Haven. We have to remove all personal items before their guests go in. If we leave anything that's not on their inventory list, it gets removed by the cleaners. We once left some kid's plastic cups in one of the cupboards and they were gone the next time we visited. We're very careful now.

^This is what I was thinking as soon as I read OP's first post. Sounds like very sloppy management at the very least. Lesson learned, I won't be using this company (or Haven, as per the other post above).

Yeah, @ExpressCheckout nice little way to boost your earnings off the books if you can get away with it.