Changes to holiday park owners rights

[Windy]

I know that I am not alone here in having property on a holiday park where I pay whopping site fees every year.

I got this news via an article I was pointed at in the Sunday Express(pages 71 and 72) which in turn led me here.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/La ... ticle.html

If I have read this correctly, Park owners can no longer impose service charge increases greater than £250 per person per year without going through a statutory consultation process with holiday home owners, as a recent ruling has defined holiday homes as dwellings withim the meaning of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985. This has brought holiday homes within the scope of the act.

If the Express is to be believed then Park Owners must also recognise residents associations, presumably so that the consultation can take place. In fact it's hard to see how they can discharge their obligations without one as they would have to consult individually with each owner.

[Nemo]

Thnaks for that Windy, it was interesting to read about the case. I had a heads up on this one, because we are in dispute regarding the service charges on our park. I spoke to an adviser at the Leasehold Advisory Service who was very knowledgeable because he was actually writing up the case notes for this very case!

In our case, a solicitor representing our Landlord had stated that we were not covered by the Landlord & Tenant Act as holiday dwellings were not covered by the Act. However I soon found out that this was not the case due to this landmark ruling! However we haven't got much further on as the Landlord has refused any discussion or mediation so far, but we will keep trying.

It was also suggested that we form a residents association but that requires a lot of time and effort by a few for the many, so isn't ideal. At present the landlord is trying to pick us off one by one and ignore the fact that we have already formed a group to bring greater pressure than as individuals.

[Windy]

All of that sounds horribly familiar Deb

[Nemo]

Yes it's sad that just as in the Cornish case, a place that was a welcome refuge becomes something to cause stress to many of the owners. I visited the site last week and went to an owners event on a Saturday evening. Out of some 30 odd owners only three others attended; they were all new owners and therefore hadn't been tainted by the landlords handling of matters. Many of the owners were on site on holiday that evening but chose to actively boycott the event.

[WASCO]

The Government is moving to strengthen consumer protection around holiday timeshares. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is seeking views from businesses, consumers, enforcement authorities, and other interested parties on the ‘transposition’ of the European Commission’s new Timeshare Directive into UK law. This will introduce common rules across the European Community by February 2011 and set the conditions for fair trading in timeshares. The consultation was opened on the 9 July, and will close on 1 October 2010. The consultation document and response form are available on the BIS website at http://is.gd/dyjdO.

[Windy]

Interesting but ultimately a different topic WASCO . No?

[Windy]

Our Park Owners are saying that because we have a licence and not a lease that this legislation does not apply to us

[Rainy]

We came up against one particular name ALOT during our search and thought we had managed to avoid the company when we bought ours on a small chalet park but lo and behold as the deal unfolded it transpired they owned our little plot aswell

We seem to be extremely lucky in that the original leases on our new place were written with a clause that states that the Landlord can only increase the charges every 7 years by a very specific calculation so we are paying a ridiculously low amount compared to most.

From what i could gather this lease has been tested in court and clarified (the tenants won ) so its very hard to another landlord to "play up" Even though they tried