Ground rent - park home overcharge

2stixoftwix

Hi
I wonder if anyone can advise

My 76 year old mother has lived for 6 years in a park home. The park is privately owned and she pays ground rent to the owner of £191 per month (this has gone up year by year)
She originally paid £115,000 6 years ago

A different park home has just gone up for sale. This is a slightly bigger property and a few years newer the value is £159,950
This home is being advertised with a ground rent of £136 per month
£55 per month less equalling £660 per year cheaper than my mum pays
They are on the same site and has the same facilities

Does anyone know if there a governing body or someone we can complain to about this

Any advice gratefully received

anselld

What does the lease say about the rent and the mechanism controlling increases?

Owain_Moneysaver

The ground rent is unrelated to the size and value of the home sited on the plot. Perhaps the site owner considers your mother's plot to be more favourable and worthy of a higher rent due to its size, position, or whatever.

Or the site owner is willing to reduce the ground rent on the other home to get it sold, knowing that his loss on the ground rent will be made up by his sales commission on the more expensive home.

2stixoftwix

The site owner has to give 28 days notice of ground rent

It's the legalities i'm interested in. why two properties can have such different prices.

The site is for over 55's only so most people are elderly.
Seems very unfair to me

davidmcn

2stixoftwix wrote: »

It's the legalities i'm interested in. why two properties can have such different prices.

They have different prices because they're different properties, negotiated between different people at different times. There's no legal principle that they ought to be the same, in the same way that prices of similar houses in a normal street don't all need to be the same.

Cakeguts

2stixoftwix wrote: »

The site owner has to give 28 days notice of ground rent

It's the legalities i'm interested in. why two properties can have such different prices.

The site is for over 55's only so most people are elderly.
Seems very unfair to me

What legalities? The owner of the land can charge whatever he wants to people who want to put their park home on it or to buy a park home already on it. The age of residents has nothing to do with the ground rent charges.

This not a sheltered housing council flat. It is a park home on a land in private ownership.

lincroft1710

The lower ground rent could be a "come-on", offer low rent for first few months or a year then increase it. Park owners can offer different rents to different people and for different pitches. Not illegal. The owner of a block of flats can offer the same size flats at different rents. It's called "free market economy". Only when it comes to rent increases and evictions will legislation prevail.

As others have said, age of home owner has no significance.