Caravan Park Fees and Coronovirus Lockdown

Lesspend

Are any static caravan holiday home owners having difficulty with park owners, and re imbursement of fees for non use during lockdown periods? -  I am aware that some parks offer credits in cash or allowance on future fees, however mine has remained the same for this future year, which is subject to only 5% vat instead the usual 20% VAT?? - In effect the service fee has actually gone up by the vat difference - Can this be right?   Should the reduction in vat be made to also help the people who pay the fees as well as the park owners? or are they capitalising the situation?
Lesspend

Jeremy535897

The VAT reduction was designed to help the businesses rather than their customers. It was for each business to decide how much, if any, of the reduction to pass on to customers. In addition, with this sort of service, the VAT point (and consequently the rate) is not always what you think.

k12479

Lesspend said:

...are they capitalising the situation?

Possibly. But equally they could have lost revenue and profit from other sources (on site shop, activities, etc.?) which the difference in VAT may or may not offset.

[Deleted User]

This topic was covered in the Money Box live programme on Radio four I think this week. You should be able to find it in the archive. To be honest i wasn't paying attention much to that bit of the programme as I don't have a caravan but it was pretty up to date advice.

mattyprice4004

Loads of threads on this - the long and short is that the caravan is still on their site so fees are still due. 

GrumpyDil

Although some parks have reduced their fees to reflect the fact that they are not providing their normal services. 

Fortnite_hero

It will depend on what the site fees cover, if you usually pay for a swimming pool and activities on site then I would think you have a case for reduction.
If you are paying just for your caravan plot then your caravan us still there.

I have never understood why there is an endless stream of people willing to sink sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds into an unregulated pastime.

John_Philip_Howarth

Fortnite_hero, I take your point about people spending thousands of pounds, but for 10 years, we gave been happy to do so . It is unfortunately only now that certain caravan park owners are not wanting to help caravan owners and insisting on charging full years fees , when the parks may not even open this year. Caravan  owners have no choice as if you don't pay your fees , access to the park is not permitted. It is as you say an unregulated pastime which the Competitions and Marketing authority need to convince the Government to take some action. 

diggingdude

What would caravan owners be saying if parks refunded fees but then doubled fees next year or massively cut back on services etc? I suspect we would see posts complain about increased costs etc 

John_Philip_Howarth

IF parks refunded fees is a very interesting question. Are you aware of ANY caravan park who have offered any sort of refund if site fees, after the last time they were closed at the end of 2020?

Aylesbury_Duck

I envisage a mass exodus of these parks once people are allowed back onto site.  The general sentiment of those paying fees is that they shouldn't be charged fees, or full fees, in periods when they can't access their caravans.  Surely they'll all just vote with their wheels and remove their caravans?