Static caravan ownership.

Mgman1965

Probably not the right forum but seemed the only one in the right area.


Just back from a static caravan holiday. Nice van on a quiet coastal site in Norfolk.


Thoroughly enjoyed it and on checkout the sales team tried to get me to buy a van on site.


I never buy anything big on contract without a lot of research, and it seems static owner forums are littered with people complaining of rip-off charges, age limits on vans of as low as ten years from new, only being allowed to sell to the park if you want to sell and offering a few hundred pounds, to then resell for thousands and the list goes on.


There seems little or no protection for owners from these sharp practices which anywhere else would get them labelled as a rogue landlord !!!!!!


The salesman's patter was very slick and convincing, but have to say looking around owners forums it seems the business is riddled with sharp practices, little protection and an easy way to lose lots of money, and has put me off completely.


I can see its easy to fall for the patter of the salesman and just as easy to lose the shirt off your back to a lot of these companies/park owners.

[Deleted User]

Yes I nearly bought a second hand caravan on a Haven site. Was a very good site (one of the main ones with very good facilities), the caravan was relatively old but still in good condition. Seemed like a wonderful opportunity at the time. I was told it was 12.9% interest, HP agreement. It was only at the last minute when I was given the contract I realised if you missed one payment they could take the caravan back and you would still owe £27k (purchase price initially was £16k). The interest rate was actually 24%. We walked away with a broken heart frankly.

But never regretted it, was a very bad deal, particularly when you take into account that in 5 years the caravan would actually be worthless and after a couple of years unrentable through Haven. The fees were then about £2k a year (we were hoping to make most of the fees back through rental). But it has to be said, a week's rental in peak season is about £1k.

So we walked away a lot wiser.

Very glad you did the research. I am sure there are some decent deals around, and decent sites (where they don't take you for every pound they can, and/or tell lies) but I think that will be a very very small minority of them.

seven-day-weekend

We bought ours second-hand two years ago. It was already sited. We felt the site fees were Ok for the facilities provided and general upkeep of the site. We were paying cash. So we bought it.

We know it will depreciate at least as quickly as a car will and that if we sell it on site we will get a fraction of what the site owner sells it on at.

We still decided it was worth it TO US. We never expected it to be an investment.

If it's not worth the expense TO YOU, then don't buy it.

Mgman1965

I'm sure there are decent sites but its finding one and it staying a decent one.


One case I read on an owners forum was a woman who bought a static purely because the pitch was lakeside, and the front window of the van overlooked the lake affording a gorgeous view. then, after a couple of years she received a letter from the site owners saying they were rearranging the site to get more vans on and would be rotating her van 90 degrees (so changing her view from the lake, to the back of another van) when she objected she was told she had no right to that pitch (they could move you at any time) or its view and her contract small print stated that.


Another shocker was a man who bought a new £60,000 van on a premium pitch, and a year later, the park was sold to another operator, who told him he had to move as they wanted to put expensive lodges where his van was, and his choices were to find another park for his van, or they would give him £14,000 for his year old 60k van (a dealer said they would give him £14k for it off site and remove it off the site, which he accepted just to stop the park making a fortune on it).

A very expensive lesson learned there !!!!!

Mgman1965

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

We bought ours second-hand two years ago. It was already sited. We felt the site fees were Ok for the facilities provided and general upkeep of the site. We were paying cash. So we bought it.

We know it will depreciate at least as quickly as a car will and that if we sell it on site we will get a fraction of what the site owner sells it on at.

We still decided it was worth it TO US. We never expected it to be an investment.

If it's not worth the expense TO YOU, then don't buy it.

I know it will never be an investment, it will always be an outgoing with little or no return apart from time spent there.

My OH who is more shall we say, clinical than me, said that to her, unless you let it out (which many sites don't allow anyway) along with the time and hassle such as cleaning between lets, extra wear and tear and tax implications plus to make the money you need to let at the peak times leaving you the end of season not so nice times makes it very expensive holidays for the few weeks you may get April/May and September.

She said for the £3000 to £4000+ a year it will cost you she would rather rent one in different places for a few weeks a year and it would be less hassle.

ProDave

For the true value of a static caravan, look at dealers websites. We paid a little over £4K for a very nice 15 year old 'van that has been our home for the last year on out own self build site, so no site fees to pay, no restrictions, just band A council tax.

MysteryMe

When you buy a used caravan on a caravan site you are not just paying for the static but also the use of a pitch so not really a like for like comparison to be fair.

Davesnave

MysteryMe wrote: »

When you buy a used caravan on a caravan site you are not just paying for the static but also the use of a pitch so not really a like for like comparison to be fair.

Surely it's not 'unfair' to work out the approximate value given by pitches from the price of unsited vans, though?

MataNui

Its something we have been looking at too. Thing is is used to work for a company who supplied services to this industry so know better than most what 'sharp' (polite way of putting it) operators these people are. Its not always a bad idea but you do need to go into it with your eyes open and do your homework. We are currently looking and waiting for a good deal to come up.

Some things to think about though:
There are two types of site. Smaller privately owned ones and the larger 'holiday' parks like Haven. The 'holiday' parks tend to have much higher site fees but less onerous rules. For example Haven dont have a max age for vans on most of their parks, the majority of private parks will have a 10 year limit. Also you will find many private parks dont allow subletting but Haven allow subletting either through them or privately. So you need to think about things like that before buying.

Another thing is who to buy from. The markup on these things is unreal. Even used vans bought from the site can be stupidly bad value (as the OP has seen). If you can find a private sale on a park then you can pick up a bargain. Again, be aware that smaller private parks do pretty much what they want and this may be a safer option on one of the bigger parks.

You already realised that this isnt in any way an investment as these things devalue so quickly but you should be able to let and cover the running costs (if that interests you). You are more likely to let a van on a 'Holiday' park than a private site.

Depends what you are wanting to get out of it really as to if its worth it or not. The money you spend on a van is pretty much lost, also you can get several long weekends plus a couple of overseas trips for the average cost of site fees. Its definitely possible to cover the site fees (or significantly subsidise them) and have a weekend bolthole though. For some thats perhaps more important.

teddysmum

Not all parks sell inclusive of a year's rent; in fact most don't. With those that do, if you take off a year's rent, the price is still high and they have you when you want to leave.


On leaving you can sell to them (many smaller parks insist on this), sell privately (but you have to pay the site 15% commission for doing virtually nothing) or selloff site. In the latter case a dealer won't give you much more and the site occupied will charge for disconnection and towing fees to the gate as they won't let traders remove from the plot.


As a private buyer on Haven in particular, you are penalised (though they call it not having a discount)by paying over £540 extra site rent ) for the while time you keep a caravan not bought from them.


The only decent deal seems to be buying a very much reduced quality caravan, privately, where the plot is pleasant but not one of the expensive ones, as fees seem to be going up at a faster rate.


We have been looking for a while and just missed one of the aforementioned deals and find that most sites want to sell to you and will only allow 'bring ons' if they have some poor pitches that they can't get anyone to take.


A number of sites sell reasonably priced caravans but they are either economy models which are very basic with no central heating or models as old as 1995 (some of which are pleasant inside, but look very dated from the outside; very angular like 1960s cars).


The sites which allow subletting, seem to charge the same fees as larger ones, but have few facilities to attract customers and I found a few, with virtually no facilities, allowing no subletting yet having very high fees, though the grounds look well kept.


I have found one, with future prospects, but it is annoying current customers (hiring direct or via owners)at the moment, as it's doing a huge refurbishment, meaning building work throughout holiday periods.


Ideally, I'd like a small site, that allows subletting (wouldn't want to do much), with owner privileges , allowing well behaved dogs and not charging the same fees as big companies, but it doesn't appear to exist within the region required (ie about 2 hours from home allowing short visits).


Owner online groups have grumbles that the large company sites are raising fees at a greater rate and are building more pitches (hence more owners) but special owner facilities are not growing in proportion, meaning that many don't get into venues or have places at events. (The companies actually admit to this, but do nothing about it yet owner perks are a large part of the sales pitch).

seven-day-weekend

We go to ours for frequent short breaks and look upon it as a second home, not a 'holiday' home, and have made friends with local residents who live in the village. It wouldn't be worth it to us if it was just 'holiday'.

Also we didn't want an inferior and old fashioned 'van. We looked at a couple, didn't like them and would not have used them after a while so although £10k cheaper than the one we eventually bought, would have been a complete waste of money.

We love the van we have, it was second-hand, already sited and it has double glazing and central heating, an ensuite washroom as well as the shower room, two bedrooms and open plan kitchen/diner/sitting room. It has some expensive composite decking, which came with it, a nice little private garden to the side and parking for three cars.It is on a beautiful site in a part of Snowdonia we have always loved.

Yes, we could have had cheaper 'van and cheaper site, but not nicer.

It's about what it is worth to you, as I said before.

https://www.aberdunant.com/