Mobile homes/caravans

Legacy_user

Having had a good old browse through the site, I haven't noticed any thread about purchasing either a holiday home ie caravan or park home for semi or permanent retirement. If anyone can push me in the right direction I'd apprciate it, as we are currently considering this.

divadee

might be better to post this on the property board or travel board you might get more luck there ;D

Pal

Definitely ask on the property board instead.

This being the pub, you will only get comments like:

"What are you, some kind of !!!!!!!?"

"Rather you than me mate, if we didn't have central heating I'd never get me missus's knickers off!"

"Just don't drive in front of me you !!!!!!. Last time I went to Devon there was this !!!!!! in front of me...."

"Shut up you cheap git and get the drinks in!"

and so on.

DiggingOut

Great, Pal, but this is the property board. Sounds like someone already got the drinks in.

TheDink

A friend of mine recently bought a mobile home but it didn't go through an estate agent. I think you have to be interviewed and approved by the site manager before you are allowed to purchase a site, you get the mobile home that is on the site at the time. You are allowed to renovate it, but are not allowed to buy a new home to replace it with (as this is how the site owners make their money). You will have to pay ground rent and coouncil tax, but it is much cheaper than for a bricks & mortar property.

I think there is a magazine called Park Home, or something similar which might be useful to you as an info source.

System

Just as a matter of interest. We would have two choices, 1) to purchase one of "their" new caravans to occupy one of their concrete bases which are few and far between or 2) buy a second hand caravan. EITHER way, a caravan is only allowed on their site for 15yrs max. From new, once the van becomes 15 yrs old, is MUST be replaced. So any 2nd hand van has already seen part of it's life gone. They are static vans. The majority are double glazed and central heated along with decking. A van we are undecided about is one year old, is said to be of the luxury type with jacuzi, full size bath etc, ceiling fan. The price, £41,000. Our worry is that the site is "high risk" flooding. But they say it's only happened once, but, it is a water park.

divadee

one down side with park homes is that when yo come to sell them you have to pay the site owner 10% of the sale. There is nothing you can do about this apparently its the law. So if you sold for 50k, 5k of that straight to the park home owner. My grandad lives in a park home thats how i know.

Also his next door neighbour died a while back and their son is having to pay to dispose of the old home as the park home owner wants to put a new one there.

cath-w

We had a house flood. As part of our survey we had the Water Board state - 'not in a flooding area'. Only in the house 18 months and it all went splashy and gurgly and we lost nearly everything. Not worth the risk to buy as you may not be able to get insurance and you may never be able to sell if all gets a bit soggy round the edges.

The gov. have been talking recently about improving the laws on park homes to help the owners and not the site owners. Here is a link to the news item on the BBC web site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3939507.stm

The main problem with park homes is that many are not all year round accomodation. Friends of my in-laws live all year round, but cannot stay for the two weeks at Xmas as the place is 'shut'. They go on holiday to Spain every year at this time so for them it is not a problem.

There can be extortion fees from the land the park home is on. Plus the cost of moving an old and buying a new one can be expensive.

I would also check if you are easily able to get contents and buildings insurance too.

Try this site for more info as there seems to be some good links.

http://www.numberone4property.co.uk/park_homes.htm

C

System

Thanks for the info which I have noted. I will continue this on the other thread.