To be stern with holiday park owner?

[LadyoftheCheeses]

My parents own a static caravan on a relatively small but well looked after site. They are due to pay for next seasons ground rent soon but are thinking about selling as they're not getting enough use to warrant the rent.

My partner and I would like the buy the caravan from them and pay the ground fee to the site.

Here's the issue - the site have said the van is too old and they'd rather not have it if my parents don't want the caravan anymore. My parents have no contract, nothing written and there are no rules regarding age of the caravan - this would not have been raised as an issue had we not have discussed us buying it, it was only when we called to explain that they said all of this.

I've spoken to the owners wife and politely explained that although the van is old, we'll be doing small renovations and plan to spend a good few seasons on site and then upgrade to a newer caravan. She has essentially said they don't want the van on site so that's that.

Where do we stand?! My parents are happy to sell the van to us, and we have the funds to purchase that and the ground rent for the season immediately. I have a call with the owner in a few hours, but I need to know where both me and my parents stand in terms of selling the caravan whether that be to us or someone else - baring in mind there is no contract at present.

Thanks!

They can choose not to have old models on site, many campgrounds have a rule of no more than 10 years old.
It should be a clearly stated policy though

You won’t win this. This is the static caravan racket. You abide by the site rules or leave pretty much.

Many owners have gotten together at various sites to argue over the wrong doings of these sites owners but basically it’s not covered
under any acting body. They are a license to print money. Huge change of name fee’s, insisting you must sell via them and buying back at mostly half the price you paid even if only a year old and then slapped up for sale by them for near what you paid again. They set the age restrictions on their sites.

Basically your parents have been allowed a tenancy for life but the second they sell if will have to be removed off site at your expense.

Also if they just abandon it on site the site will again take you to small claims courts for the costs of removal and disposal of the caravan. They will win because you can bet your bottom dollar they will have a copy of the contract or others from the same dates.

I thought most, if not all, sites had a rule about the age of caravans.

just keep it in yr parents name! You use it. You pay the costs associated with it.
when you want to upgrade, then buy it.
As stated above, it’s fairly standard that they don’t allow old caravans to remain and force people to buy newer vans.

You can’t just demand they let you leave it on the site, no matter how stern you are. You’ll need to pay to have it removed and taken elsewhere.

If it belongs to your parents, can't you just give them the money for it, and leave it in their name? Then just get your parents to say they changed their mind about selling and want to continue on the site.

I’m afraid I agree with the advice here, but surely your parents had something in writing when they purchased?

Problem op has now with the just pay the parents is. The owners are now aware that the ops parents want out.

So if ops now there 90% of the time and her parents never or very rarely and they are carrying out all the repairs and ordering of gas bottles etc they will be able to see clear as day it’s being fudged.

Also insurance won’t be valid if op now owns it but her parents insure it as theirs and most sites want a copy of the insurance yearly for their records incase basically it catches fire and damages their site so op can’t insure it in her name.

To those saying that it belongs to my parents so we could just pay and keep it in their name - they've said they won't allow this. I'm unsure how they would police this - especially with no written contract.

We've no intention of abandoning it on site, but without a contract we're struggling to see how they can 'disallow' us to sell the caravan.

To clarify, we want to sort this properly but we don't want to be forced off site unfairly, as ideally we want to take over the caravan from my parents.

Also, the site are incredibly 'old school'. All verbal, no written contracts or agreements, essentially a case of pay your dues, be respectable owners and go about your day sort of vibe. The site is run by a chap in his 80's and his wife, no admin staff or anything like that.

These things are unregulated and can do what they want basically, you can be as stern as you want and they can still hold their stance unfortunately.

You only rent the land off them. They can decide you must leave for many reasons perfectly legally.

I don’t know of any sites that allow sold older caravans to stay. After a certain age it’s always off site sales.

Doesn’t matter how old they are or old school.

They can kick you off because you’ve fallen out basically if they want to by not accepting the yearly fee’s.

I'm hoping that they will accept that my parents own the caravan and we will just pay them the ground rent to forward onto the owners.

The site allow family and friends to stay, just no 'rentals' so we couldn't charge anyone to use it, which we wouldn't.

My title was worded fairly strongly, I must stress we are not trying to be harsh, but we just want to own the caravan and pay the fees with no hassle and that's turned into a bit of a fuss!

Unfortunately they do not have to renew your lease for any reason .they like don't like your hair colour is a good enough reason . Being stern will just get you evicted with no grace ie they can pull your caravan off site and dump it in a space ie carpark or wherever of there choosing you have no written contract so legally nothing you can do .

Me too.

I'd be very surprised if they didn't.

And they can charge for the pleasure to boot. Disconnection fee, removal fee and storage on their carpark.

It’s crazy but as we all know unregulated.

Thanks everyone - I suppose we will just have to negotiate and see where we get.

Seems such a shame as we see this as a long term investment with the intention of buying a far newer caravan in a few years time!

Why not just buy the new caravan now? Genuine question.

That's really unfair on the owners though.

They think the caravan is too old now and yet you want to make them wait a few more years, till it's off their site?

@UndermyShoeJoe lack of savings! We were planning to just buy when we have enough savings in a few years but now that the opportunity has arisen for us to buy from my parents very cheaply to get out foot in the door, per se, then we'd like to do so rather than them having to get rid of it.

@PizzaPunk we would stay on site, when we buy a newer caravan we would pay for the removal and disposal of the old and the siting of the new on the same plot.

Which as I said, is really unfair on the owners.

The caravan is too old NOW and yet you expect them to put up with it on their property for a few more years?

You don’t stand anywhere. There is no formal agreement in place and it’s their site. Unfortunately whether you like it or not they can do what they like.

Why would you think you would have any rights?