Holiday Homes

oldandgrumpy

I have been considering down sizing from our three/four bed terrace in Stevenage and looking for a property anywhere that is smallish, two bed and cheap. There are thousands of holiday homes available that fit the bill, most to HRBC regs, and a lot freehold. BUT.... they all restrict the time I may live in them. Due to some licence thing or other.
Can anyone explain the logic that requires loads of new construction when all these places are available but blocked by some bureaucracy or other?

lil_miss_17

C'est la vie I'm afraid. We have this with our holiday home in wales - granted it wasn't built as a home but as RAF barracks in WW2.
However we could probably live there full time as someone else in an adjoining property does and has done for about 18 years so the council have ignored him and really couldn't object to change of use.
It's worth finding out if any have been granted permanent occupation etc

oldandgrumpy

Thanks, lil miss. Can you tell me, do the council make the duration stipulation?
Can you live there as your sole residence but go to Spain for a couple of months a year? I mean, legally.
And ww2 barracks, or even the prefab we had post war would be acceptable. Have campervan and love france. Just need an address in UK really.

Austin_Allegro

oldandgrumpy wrote: »

I have been considering down sizing from our three/four bed terrace in Stevenage and looking for a property anywhere that is smallish, two bed and cheap. There are thousands of holiday homes available that fit the bill, most to HRBC regs, and a lot freehold. BUT.... they all restrict the time I may live in them. Due to some licence thing or other.
Can anyone explain the logic that requires loads of new construction when all these places are available but blocked by some bureaucracy or other?

There is an interesting book called 'Off Grid' by Nick Rosen which explains all this. Basically, local authorities strictly control any form of 'temporary' housing (caravans, houseboats etc) because they don't want large new populations springing up overnight which they will then have to provide services for. They want to plan long term hence the preference for 'properly' planned and traditionally built developments. If they didn't do this, the argument goes, the countryside would be covered with trailer-park shanty towns.

Of course there's also the counter-theory that governments and vested interests (banks etc) don't want people to be 'free' in this way; much better that the population should be tied to mortgages and steady work.

I can't see why though you couldn't live in a holiday home for ten months of the year and then winter in Spain or Malta or one of those places. You would still need a permanent UK address for your GP etc but I think there are ways round this with poste restante addresses etc - the bottom line is make sure you know where you stand, as a lot of people living in boats, caravans etc end up being there on a nod and a wink and falling into difficulties with the authorities.

lil_miss_17

Ours place restricts use in Nov-Feb but we still go there in the winter for weekends. I think it has something to do with the council/planning permission department. So yes we could live there Feb-Nov and then abroad the rest of the time. As long as it's not PERMANENTLY resided in all year round as far as I know

oldandgrumpy

Thanks again lil miss, and Austin. Off to the library to demand book.
As for the councils being worried about shanty sprawl, if you google holiday homes, you will see that they already sprawl over most of the west country!
I like the Continental idea....prefabricated, high insulation homes, quick to put up, and most complete with all the best energy saving. One French company offers a 2 bed bungalow for 50000 euros. Of course, you need the land and builders, but we seem to have plenty of the latter at this time! Google maisons au bois....not Huff houses but very interesting.

SquatNow

If you just need an address, why not rent a crappy box-flat or bedsite somewhere, or find a relative willing to let you use their address?

You don't have to *BUY* somewhere to be able to use it as your place of residence, you just need to be able to collect post there.