To think my parents are making a mistake?

[FizzyCherry]

My parents are both of retirement age, Mum is 69, Dad is 72.
Due to various reasons they didn’t get a mortgage until 20 years ago and both still work to pay it off, but they have at least 7 years left on it.

They have decided they want to retire, sell the house and buy a static home at a holiday park. They’re convinced it’s their ideal solution.

I totally understand their logic but I can’t help feeling they are being lured into a situation they will end up regretting.

If they sell the house, they can clear the mortgage and buy a static home outright with money left over.

However, they still have to pay the equivalent of 2/3 of their mortgage in ground rent and various other fees.
The park has swimming pool, gym etc, they are “free to use” - but that’s another £120 a month membership (!)
They must vacate their home for the whole of February every year so the site residents can avoid council tax.
Plus a friend of theirs lived somewhere similar that the owner decided to sell to developers. They were given £45,000 to “buy somewhere new”, after having lived there 10 years. They only owned the home, not the land, so that actually wasn’t a bad offer, but obviously nowhere near enough to start again.
So although they won’t have a mortgage, their outgoings will still be quite high, and they won’t have the same income, and they will need at least one car because this place is in the middle of nowhere. Plus at the end of the day, they will have nothing to show for it.

I have visited and it’s nice, but I think they are so attracted to the idea of living on a holiday park they are not seeing the full picture.

In addition, it’s in the countryside, where my mum has always insisted she could never live.

I asked if they would even consider this village if they were looking at houses, they said not for a second.

I fully support them in needing to make a move (and the house they’re in they only bought when I was 20, I only lived there 2 years so there’s no childhood sentiments involved).
Nor is this about inheritance before anyone says anything.
Although we’re not well off now, my husband stands to inherit quite well and my parents have never had much, plus have several kids, so it’s never been something we really think about,

But AIBU to be wary of this solution? Their current house is five minutes from mine and they are convinced that I’m trying to put them off because it’s convenient for babysitting etc but I genuinely am not remotely thinking about me or my needs, I’m an adult who can sort my own life.

I haven’t told them this but my husband and I have been trying to work out a way to help my parents pay the mortgage off but we’re just not in that position right now.
Nor can we offer them a spare room for February every year, we don’t have one. Nor do my siblings (one does but he lives abroad and my parents don’t like flying so he comes here for visits).

I suppose what I’m looking for is reassurance that I am BU, or at least more experiences of why I’m not.

I have suggested they look at retirement flats etc, my mum thinks they are for “old people”.

They like their house and would stay if they could afford it.

WWYD?

YABU in being concerned, for all the reasons given above park homes are often a poor choice.

However to convince them that you have their best interests at heart ask what appeals to them about the sit. Then see if you can find another option offering something similar. That could be a bungalow in a completely different location, or a flat. Retirement flats can have poor resale value and high fees and may not be the best option but still be better than a park home. However this company do property they might like www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk

Ask them what they would do if, for some reason it didn't work out.

Equity release?

There was a feature on BBC Radio 4 Moneybox about people complaining about poor resale value of McCarthy and Stone properties. I think the problem was that they overpaid for new builds, along with perhaps some of the facilities promised were not actually provided.

However, perhaps the OPs parents could turn this to their advantage and look to buy a second hand flat in a retirement complex (after checking out what the service charges are obviously).

In the piece I heard, the resale prices sounded very reasonable, but were signifcantly lower than the price the first owners had paid.

how did they hear bout this.
friend had similar huge mistake.and they lost all rights.and lived so unhappily.they didn't have right over home,land.they simply own the mobile home in situ.they couldn't sell it as it was part of the complex nor the land.they essential owned something of nothing.and were paying into the fees and contracted to this so couldn't stop.fees also went up.
you are also not allowed to call outside the complex if anything goes wrong so can be waiting for things to be fixed and by who?
they weren't the only ones this happened to.
read through any contracts.
be warry if they have been "sold" this by someone.
a very nice man came to my friends door.well.need.i.say. more.
id talk honeslty to them if you can.dont be forceful or patronising or put them down.maybe even mention a friend(ie some of us on here) have had some terrible things happen.and you love them so need to protect them.be kind of loving bout it and I cant see how they should feel anything but how much you care for them.

There have been a few reports about places like this in Private Eye over the past year. I'd steer very well clear.

My parents downsized from their family home to a new flat in the town centre. Although you had to crowbar my mum out of the house, she now loves it being a 5 minute walk to everything.

I'm not surprised you are concerned for them.
Have they visited the park while it is busy and in full holiday season, have they considered what it will be like when lots of holidaymakers descend on their 'home'?
My mothers friend did this and it turned out there were all sort of problems with it being only temporary accommodation that they hadn't been made aware of or considered until they were living there and it was too late.
Would they consider renting out their own place while they live there to try it out first before committing?

There are sites which are licensed for the whole so you don't have to vacate. They would be much better served, if they insist on a static, to find a better site.

Retirement home available only to over55s would be better thoughh.

As long as you're not bothered about inheritance, an equity release scheme might be a good solution for them at their age. They would never lose their home and would be mortgage free for life, as long as they have built up enough equity by this point.

I strongly suggest that you get more information about it.

Equity release could be an option if they like where they live and the house is suitable or easily adaptable should they need it to be more accessible in the future.

There might even be the possibility of rolling up their existing mortgage in the equity release product?

There is of course the risk that they could 'lose' all the value of their property to the Equity Release company, but following a lot of mis selling scandals, I think this area is now more heavily regulated and there has to be a 'no negative equity' clause.

The advantage over a park home would be that they can always live in the property, will be able to live there all year round, won't face service charges or requirements to replace a caravan every few years, but there might be stipulations about maintenance of their house, so they would need to check that these are reasonable and achievable.

I think you won't talk them out of this without having another solution. I think they are wrong to pursue this, but I also understand that they are now seeing that your dad working full time till 79 and your mum 76 to pay the mortgage off is not a sensible idea.

I think that they would be better off selling and downsizing to a flat in an area where they want to live. A flat will follow the trends of the property market, so if they need to sell and move again they will be broadly in line with other property prices, whereas static homes always decrease in value. They will also be more secure in a flat as anything could happen in a static home park, it could be sold off for development for instance.

I agree it's a crackpot idea and that OP will end up being expected to sort out problem after problem.

Health professional here: it's a bad idea.

It's in the middle of nowhere - if they need carers, it will be hard and expensive to source a care package as no-one will want to travel out to them.

Will it fit a hospital bed? What about getting on and off the loo?Having someone help them in the shower?

They may think retirement flats are for old people but things can change v fast at their age. My dad was a super fit 74 yr old until he had cancer at which point he became really old almost overnight.

Just on the basis of having to vacate for a month every year, I'd say it sounds dodgy as fuck. Where on earth are they planning to go? Plus, they will be at the mercy of the site owner - what if the site is sold? What will they do then? Where is the security? What if we have more winters like this one - how well is a static caravan going to cope with temperatures of -13, which is what it was here, with the windchill?

They sound like they desperately want to retire (fair enough), have found something that sounds nice on the face of it and are not thinking it through, or are being wilfully blind to the potential pitfalls.

Would they be better to find a cheaper location to buy a house? It doesn’t sound like they’re particularly fussed about staying close to their grandchildren so maybe they should broaden their search area and stick to bricks and mortar.

being of the same demographic - it is a really really bad idea.
Can they not as others have said consider a smaller place in a small town where house prices are lower (apologies if you have already said they live in a pricey area). I live rurally (country born and bred with some forays into city living) and intend to move to a small town where I don't have to get the car out for a pint of milk, or my prescription or visit the DR but I would never consider a park home (11 months only occupation.)

Can they remortgage (given their equity) to a lower interest rate and therefore manage to pay for the next 7 years without working (they must have 2 state pension incomes coming in).

I suggest you help them work up (and cost) 3 or 4 plans - perhaps the status quo (work for 7 years more, thinking whether they could pay off earlier), the static caravan idea, equity release, and move somewhere cheaper.
Cost each one, think about the "what-ifs" and think how you might test them.

So get them to take a week or two in a static during winter; perhaps some weekends way in different areas that they might live in, and so on.

YBR I suspect they know that working full time till 79 is not realistic. Which is why they are trying to come up with a solution.

I've just looked at a link posted.
The best part of quarter of a million for a caravan?

Hahaha! Yes.

Back in the noughties I worked in policy covering residential park homes. These were Lslightly better provided for than 'holiday homes' inasmuch as at least there were a couple of bits of legislation covering them. (The non-residential typeie where you have to vacate for a month each yearare a purely contractual issue. Much as if you were blowing 6 figures on a holidayexcept without even ABTA protection.) However, the fact remained that there was still very little security of tenure if the park owners wanted to cash in by creating churneither of the units themselves, or because the fee structure was often an incentive for residents to be 'encouraged' to leave. Almost every aspect determining people's rights and what they had to paysite fees, re-sale of units, bringing in new units, commission, utilitieswas a matter for the contract, with little statutory imposition. It was bad enough even in the halcyon days when OfT (RIP) was starting to get involved in contract terms in the general residential sector, but since then I doubt there's been much interest taken. You could get people paying £100k+ (over 16 years ago) for a unit that they could neither move nor continue to occupy after a few years.

You might wonder how anyone gets themselves into this position. Well, I met a few park home dwellers. They are generally not highly-educated nor from professional backgrounds. They have enough craftiness to look for 'loopholes' in 'the system', but not to really understand how and where is right to do this. A big attraction of park homes was apparently that "you can buy one without using a solicitor!"--to the rest of us, it would seem like madness to spend £k without taking legal advice, and of course exacerbated by that lack of education.

(Before anyone objects to how I've characterised either the parks or their occupants, I'm describing how it was back in the day. I suspect the legislation hasn't been tightened up, but it's possible the rogues have been driven out and the demographics of the occupants have changed in the meantime.)

OP, you might be able to play on a sense of snobbery I encountered with park home residents. Park homes are legally caravans (the more so ones where the site closes each winter), on a caravan site. Residents really didn't like this terminology, though, and insisted on them being called park homes and home parks (!!). Calling them "caravan dwellers" carried connotations to them of a demographic they really didn't want to be associated with. I'm personally normally not one for snobbery over where people want to live, but if it brings home to your parents the reality of what they're contemplating, tis for the greater good.

YANBU at all OP, it seems like a terrible idea.
I think you are doing to have to sit them down and have a proper talk about this, Print out that Age Concern information for them and point out the issues raised by pp on here.
The dm of a friend of mine has one of these, but only uses it in the summer months,but it is a money pit all year round, something always needs doing, and her dm is lucky to have son in laws who can help her. I just asked her daughter and she says her mum would never live there all the time, and certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone else to do so.
Good luck

I didn't realise that static caravans need replacing so often although it makes sense if you think about it.I don't expect your parents know either.
Do they have any savings that they can plough into their mortgage to reduce monthly payments.Jave they got the best mortgage?Failing that then in this case equity release would be the solution.

I'd be concerned too but it sounds like their minds are made up.

Unless they are in poor health, unlikely if they are both working full time, I am not sure they would be eligible for equity release scheme.