I am delighted that the government is looking to better support Park Home Owners, and I reproduce below for your information, a recent letter to Conservative Councillors from Grant Shapps MP: "19 April 2012
A Better Deal for Park Home Owners
This week, my Department published a consultation paper on reforms to park homes and mobile home / caravan site licensing. As you may be aware from your council casework, there are sometimes incidents of unscrupulous site operators exploiting home owners, who are often elderly and on lower incomes. This has been a long-running issue, and has been subject to a number of reviews in recent years.
These proposed reforms will enhance the powers of local councils and put the park home sector on a sustainable footing for the long term, allowing site operators to run good businesses, offer a decent service to residents and ensure that home owners can live peacefully in their homes knowing that the law protects them from abuse.
This consultation is aimed at tackling a number of complaints made by residents of some mobile home site operators. These can include:
· blocking an owner’s sale of their home - without justifiable reason;
· neglecting their sites and failing to make adequate repairs; and
· charging excessive pitch fees, breaching site rules and stopping owners from improving their homes.
The proposed changes include:
· changing legislation to improve other residents’ rights to reflect their status as home owners by, for example, allowing them to carry out home improvements without seeking permission;
· strengthening the rules around the sale of mobile homes so that unscrupulous operators cannot interfere with owners selling to a qualifying buyer who they have chosen;
· ensuring compliance with site licence conditions by enabling the courts to impose unlimited fines on operators who do not manage their sites properly;
· allowing local authorities to make a reasonable charge on site operators for their licensing services, which they are currently unable to do; and
· giving local authorities the power to carry out works on sites in an emergency or where the site operator has been found guilty of a breach of the licence, and charge the cost back to them.
The consultation, which is open until 28 May, is available at www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/mobilehomeowners
Yours truly,
Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Minister of State for Housing and Local Government
A Better Deal for Park Home Owners
This week, my Department published a consultation paper on reforms to park homes and mobile home / caravan site licensing. As you may be aware from your council casework, there are sometimes incidents of unscrupulous site operators exploiting home owners, who are often elderly and on lower incomes. This has been a long-running issue, and has been subject to a number of reviews in recent years.
These proposed reforms will enhance the powers of local councils and put the park home sector on a sustainable footing for the long term, allowing site operators to run good businesses, offer a decent service to residents and ensure that home owners can live peacefully in their homes knowing that the law protects them from abuse.
This consultation is aimed at tackling a number of complaints made by residents of some mobile home site operators. These can include:
· blocking an owner’s sale of their home - without justifiable reason;
· neglecting their sites and failing to make adequate repairs; and
· charging excessive pitch fees, breaching site rules and stopping owners from improving their homes.
The proposed changes include:
· changing legislation to improve other residents’ rights to reflect their status as home owners by, for example, allowing them to carry out home improvements without seeking permission;
· strengthening the rules around the sale of mobile homes so that unscrupulous operators cannot interfere with owners selling to a qualifying buyer who they have chosen;
· ensuring compliance with site licence conditions by enabling the courts to impose unlimited fines on operators who do not manage their sites properly;
· allowing local authorities to make a reasonable charge on site operators for their licensing services, which they are currently unable to do; and
· giving local authorities the power to carry out works on sites in an emergency or where the site operator has been found guilty of a breach of the licence, and charge the cost back to them.
The consultation, which is open until 28 May, is available at www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/mobilehomeowners
Yours truly,
Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Minister of State for Housing and Local Government
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