You may recall my concerns last quarter regarding the unacceptable treatment towards some of our fellow holiday home owners by a small number of park operators. The response to this quite frankly, has been most encouraging…
It seems a large number of our owners are very aware of the pitfalls that can occur when buying a static or holiday lodge. Although unfortunately, it seems the penny doesn’t drop until they are committed to owning one. Despite this being an age old problem – there may be help on the way.
Other sectors of the industry are now supporting the idea of a Standard Pitch Licence Agreement, providing satisfactory Terms and Conditions for both the park operator and the holiday home owner.
Working alongside Trading Standards it may well be a small light at the end of a long tunnel. If the industry as a whole can produce a standard Pitch Licence Agreement defining a Contract and preventing Unfair Terms that would be acceptable to the majority of well meaning park operators, then this would go along way in addressing this issue. We will keep you informed.
Give a thought to the transport guys who move our holiday homes from the factories to the parks. One of the important sectors of our industry. Large specially designed vehicles are used to move the new ever growing holiday/static lodges (sometimes hundreds of miles to their destination). In the old days small tourer type caravans were towed from the factories to parks.
Today some of our big holiday lodges can be up to 42ft (13 metres) long by 14ft (4.4 metres) wide. Timing is all important for these monster holiday homes often travelling through small villages and towns to reach their final resting place.
Accompanied by their escort vehicle, small towns and villages are more accessible during the very early hours. Specialist professional drivers (and often their assistants) take their work very seriously and are a most important part of the process of acquiring a holiday home.
As you will probably notice from your Sales Invoice – movement costs are quite considerable and in some cases can be as much as £3,000.00 plus vat.
Here is hoping your Summer leisure time is providing lots of fun and carefree days.
SIDE notes
Two holiday home owners overheard discussing…
WINTERPROOFING
File No.14
Right. That’s it. I’m winter-ready.
It’s 26 degrees!
Better safe than sorry.
What have you done this time?
Drained the pipes, wrapped the taps, triple-insulated the windows.
You do realise it’s August?
I’m ahead of the game!
What’s happened to your decking?
I’ve cling-filmed it.
Sorry to be obvious, but why?
Draughts are sneaky. Like ninjas.
And what’s in all those boxes?
A wide range of defrosted breakfast cereals.
What does that mean?
There’s everything in there bar Frosties.
This is madness! Julie’s on our decking with a Campari!
I hope she’s got her thermals on.
No, she hasn’t. Unfortunately, we’ve fallen victim to an outbreak of sanity.
If you could see a thermal image of your van, you’d be shocked.
Have you been snooping around again?
I am merely trying to alert you to the importance of insulation.
You’ve insulated yourself from reality.
I don’t care. I’ll be warm as toast.
Well, I’m going for a cold plunge.
