Private holiday let owner help

danchest

I am a private owner of a caravan at a large well known site. I rely on letting to be able to pay the large land rent. Obviously I have had no guests and have no bookings at the moment moving forward, last year we were fully booked by now. Is there goverment help available for me? I can see lots of things for businesses.

Jeremy535897

I assume you declare the income as furnished holiday letting income on your self assessment return? Although such income is treated like trading income for some purposes, it is not self employed income for the purposes of the self employed grant. Nor will you qualify for the small business grant or RHL grant because it is the park that is on the rating list. You won't qualify for a bounce back loan either, so unfortunately you would have to look into entitlement for benefits.

sharpe106

Are you actually running it as a business or are you just renting it out to help cover the cost of land rent and using it yourself the rest of the time?

Grumpy_chap

I don't think there will be anything to off-set the loss of income from not renting the caravan out - that is non-trading income and none of the other coronavirus support covers non-trading income.

There is a thread / newsarticle by the MSE team on caravan park and the position with regard to the site fees.  A partial reduction here will be some assistance.

Is the caravan your main source of income, like a business, or just a hobby with the letting income paying for you to enjoy the remainder of the year?

danchest

It is not registered as a business we process it through tax return as holiday let. The rent pays towards the ground rent, we don't make any profit.

sharpe106

All you can do is ask the owner of the park for a discount on the ground rent as you have not been able to access it. As it is not a registered business there is no government scheme to help you. 

a_fierce_bad_rabbit

I don’t know about caravans,sadly, but I’m sure you were able to claim up to 10,000 for cottages.
wasnt there some kerfuffle about second homes being declared as holiday let’s so the owners could reap the reward?

or it could be a lot of unpleasant propaganda, I don’t know.

Jeremy535897

a_fierce_bad_rabbit said:

I don’t know about caravans,sadly, but I’m sure you were able to claim up to 10,000 for cottages.
wasnt there some kerfuffle about second homes being declared as holiday let’s so the owners could reap the reward?

or it could be a lot of unpleasant propaganda, I don’t know.

When council tax increased significantly for second homes, some people who let their homes as holiday homes for the requisite period in a year asked for their holiday homes to be rated, rather than be subject to council tax, and then claimed SBRR so didn't have to pay anything, except possibly for rubbish collection. They then received a £10,000 windfall from the small business grant fund. They were not able to do this to become eligible for the grant, because they had to be on the rating list at 11 March 2020.

a_fierce_bad_rabbit

Jeremy535897 said:

a_fierce_bad_rabbit said:

I don’t know about caravans,sadly, but I’m sure you were able to claim up to 10,000 for cottages.
wasnt there some kerfuffle about second homes being declared as holiday let’s so the owners could reap the reward?

or it could be a lot of unpleasant propaganda, I don’t know.

When council tax increased significantly for second homes, some people who let their homes as holiday homes for the requisite period in a year asked for their holiday homes to be rated, rather than be subject to council tax, and then claimed SBRR so didn't have to pay anything, except possibly for rubbish collection. They then received a £10,000 windfall from the small business grant fund. They were not able to do this to become eligible for the grant, because they had to be on the rating list at 11 March 2020.

Thanks for clarifying that, makes sense now.