Friday 27 May 2011
Weeds anyone?
The immediate problem we have with the site is the lack of any maintenance. "Be patient", we are told, "it will take time for us to get eveything done". Well we all think that maintaining the park is something that should happen all the time and we can't understand what the delay is. More later in this also.
Snow and Tax
What we have all discussed on our park is the council tax band we pay. We are rated band B. I'm not sure that the same system to assess a house applies to park homes. We also see less services in things like street lighting and snow clearing. All the other services we use of course and these are irrespective of the value of where you live. The band is calculated by calculating what your home would have been worth in 1991 - there are a few online calculators that will do this. This seems to calculate that a house worth 100,000 now would have been worth £36,000 in 1991 so it is Band C.
However a park home is not a house, not registered with the land registry and so on, but it is a chattel, like a car or caravan. The value may increase but is more likely to decrease. I think that unless it is an extraordinarily grand park home or on a very large plot they should fall into band A.
If not then surely we should at least have the snow cleared from our small access road. It seems, although we still have to confirm it, that the owners deny it is their responsibility as if they do clear the snow and someone falls on a cleared section, then they could be liable. This does not seem so be a reason not to do it as they do have a resonsibility to maintain the park and the access road belongs to them. More on this later!
However a park home is not a house, not registered with the land registry and so on, but it is a chattel, like a car or caravan. The value may increase but is more likely to decrease. I think that unless it is an extraordinarily grand park home or on a very large plot they should fall into band A.
If not then surely we should at least have the snow cleared from our small access road. It seems, although we still have to confirm it, that the owners deny it is their responsibility as if they do clear the snow and someone falls on a cleared section, then they could be liable. This does not seem so be a reason not to do it as they do have a resonsibility to maintain the park and the access road belongs to them. More on this later!
Thursday 26 May 2011
Funny Electricity
The supply of electricity on park homes is usually quite a bit different from a house.
In your house you can choose a supplier and you have your own meter that is read by you or your supplier and you get a bill or pay standing order. In park homes the supplier usually supplies the owner and this is then charged on to the park home. With our home we have a card meter and we buy cards to use in it. These are the same meters used by landlords and can be set to a price per unit, 10p 12p or whatever. The rules regarding what you can be charged is fairly clear. The owner cannot make a profit on the electricity but can add something for management/infrastructure or whatever. Hopefully most owners are being completely honest and up front about this and making it clear about what are why the tenant is being charged. After all the tenant has no choice in what provider is chosen and has to rely on the owner choosing the best deal for the right reasons. Since our park has been taken over we are waiting to hear what rate we will be set to so more about this later on...
In your house you can choose a supplier and you have your own meter that is read by you or your supplier and you get a bill or pay standing order. In park homes the supplier usually supplies the owner and this is then charged on to the park home. With our home we have a card meter and we buy cards to use in it. These are the same meters used by landlords and can be set to a price per unit, 10p 12p or whatever. The rules regarding what you can be charged is fairly clear. The owner cannot make a profit on the electricity but can add something for management/infrastructure or whatever. Hopefully most owners are being completely honest and up front about this and making it clear about what are why the tenant is being charged. After all the tenant has no choice in what provider is chosen and has to rely on the owner choosing the best deal for the right reasons. Since our park has been taken over we are waiting to hear what rate we will be set to so more about this later on...
Park Home - a good choice?
After a fairly short time of thinking about it, we decided in 2009 to buy a park home on a park in Crieff, Perthshire. It was not a difficult decision to make, these homes are very nice. Well most of the time they are.
The one we looked at was in a lovely position beside a river, very well laid out and equipped and not a bad price. So we went for it. We are still happy with the decision and it is now our only home - we sold the bricks and mortar.
For anyone who is not familiar with park homes, they are a prefabricated house of wooden construction. They arrive in two parts on the back of a lorry and are bolted together. Bricked up around the base they look like a small bungalow. They now have a very high standard of insulation and if looked after will last for decades.
The downside or the reason they sometimes have bad publicity is that they are almost always sited on a park, on a pitch, and it begins to sound (and is regarded by Councils and the law) like a caravan park. This does not detract from quality of the surroundings or lifestyle. These parks have rules that will usually mean you can enjoy a quiet, comfortable life. For people who have it as their only home, the park must be a residential park and not for holidays only. You pay a monthly rental for your pitch and this varies widely, depends on location, location and quite a few other things. We actually thought that ours was in a lovely location and we could never afford to buy a plot like this and put a house on it. We think we would have to pay the equivalent of the pitch fee for 40 years at interest free just to buy a plot, it might be bigger and have more distance to our neighbours but we find the one we have is just fine.
The other potential problem is the owners of the park who can make life very difficult for the residents. There are good and bad of course.
This blog will follow our interaction with one of the bigger operators of residential parks in the UK, Wyldecrest Homes. The site we live on was previously owned by Welch Homes but after some problems it was taken over by Wyldecrest Homes. Our life here over the last two years has been fine, there have been some things not done as they should have been and we are hoping for much better from the much bigger organisation that has taken over. We will state facts here, no unfounded accusations but simply our week by week experiences. We hope it will help anyone else trying to make the choice of moving to a park home, releasing some of the capital from their bricks and mortar and living very comfortably. It may show some of the downsides and perhaps help in knowing what to expect.
The one we looked at was in a lovely position beside a river, very well laid out and equipped and not a bad price. So we went for it. We are still happy with the decision and it is now our only home - we sold the bricks and mortar.
For anyone who is not familiar with park homes, they are a prefabricated house of wooden construction. They arrive in two parts on the back of a lorry and are bolted together. Bricked up around the base they look like a small bungalow. They now have a very high standard of insulation and if looked after will last for decades.
The downside or the reason they sometimes have bad publicity is that they are almost always sited on a park, on a pitch, and it begins to sound (and is regarded by Councils and the law) like a caravan park. This does not detract from quality of the surroundings or lifestyle. These parks have rules that will usually mean you can enjoy a quiet, comfortable life. For people who have it as their only home, the park must be a residential park and not for holidays only. You pay a monthly rental for your pitch and this varies widely, depends on location, location and quite a few other things. We actually thought that ours was in a lovely location and we could never afford to buy a plot like this and put a house on it. We think we would have to pay the equivalent of the pitch fee for 40 years at interest free just to buy a plot, it might be bigger and have more distance to our neighbours but we find the one we have is just fine.
The other potential problem is the owners of the park who can make life very difficult for the residents. There are good and bad of course.
This blog will follow our interaction with one of the bigger operators of residential parks in the UK, Wyldecrest Homes. The site we live on was previously owned by Welch Homes but after some problems it was taken over by Wyldecrest Homes. Our life here over the last two years has been fine, there have been some things not done as they should have been and we are hoping for much better from the much bigger organisation that has taken over. We will state facts here, no unfounded accusations but simply our week by week experiences. We hope it will help anyone else trying to make the choice of moving to a park home, releasing some of the capital from their bricks and mortar and living very comfortably. It may show some of the downsides and perhaps help in knowing what to expect.
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