More protection for the mobile home owner

A mobile home means a static immobile park home, a sort of caravan home, stationed on a relevant protected site. Holiday and traveller caravans are excluded.

Some 160,000 people live in 85,000 mobile homes on 2,000 sites in England. Some of the occupiers have suffered abuses from unscrupulous or oppressive site owners, such as failures of safety, maintenance, security and subjection to unacceptable treatment.

Because of bad management, oppressive site rules, excessive pitch fees, unfair service charges and sale blocking and commission on the part of the owner, the occupier has too often had a most unhappy experience. The drains have not been attended to when blocked, the pathways have been neglected and allowed to become dangerous, and the site lighting has been out of action. Calor gas and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) have been controlled by the owner. The Green Deal does not apply (Green Deal finance can be taken out to pay for energy-saving home improvements).

The pitch fees have been exorbitant. If the occupier has wished to sell his mobile home he has had to give first refusal to the owner or gain the approval of the owner for a prospective purchaser. The owner has been known to give false information to the prospective purchaser, either scaring him off or inducing him to offer an unrealistic price. The owner has then demanded a considerable commission or fee on the transaction.

Malpractice has been rife.
Too often the site owner could hardly have been described
as a fit and proper person. Enforcement has been largely ineffective, and sanctions have been too low.

Annual licence

The owner of a relevant protected site will now have to pay an annual licensing fee to the local authority (LA) for a residential site to cover the costs of administration (section 1). The fee is expected to average some £1,350 per annum.

The licence will contain prescribed conditions (section 2). The management and conduct of the site will be subject to site rules. The LA will set the standards. An appeal will lie to the Property Chamber (Residential Property) Tribunal (section 3). Failure to comply will lead to a compliance notice, default constituting an offence, and if necessary the local authority will be able to enter and carry out the works and charge the site owner and charge the land (subsection (4)(7)). A licence may be revoked by the tribunal.

Management profile

Under secondary legislation, the secretary of state will be able to require the manager
of a site to be a fit and proper person (section 8), but this provision is not expected to
be implemented until 2017. Meanwhile, the imposition of strict site rules and vigilant enforcement should provide reasonable protection for occupiers.

At the annual review of
pitch fees any decrease in the condition and amenity and quality of service is a factor
to be taken into account.
Any increase in the pitch
fees, including ground rent
and service charges, must not exceed the retail price index (Retail Prices Index section 11).

New occupiers

Sale blocking by the site owner is prohibited. From now on,
the occupier under a new agreement need not involve
the owner at all with the prospective purchaser. The occupier must inform the site owner of the identity of the new occupier, his name and age. There may be minimum age requirements in the site rules, for example pensioners only. There can be no requirement for permission to sell. The selling occupier must supply all relevant information to the new occupier. The new occupier must naturally agree to be bound by the site rules.
In respect of existing agreements the occupier must still inform the site owner of the name of the prospective purchaser and the site owner retains the right within 21 days to prove to the tribunal that the prospective purchaser is unsuitable (section 10 and
The Mobile Homes (Selling
and Gifting) (England) Regulations 2013).

The site owner who knowingly or recklessly provides information or makes a representation which is false or misleading in a material respect, or is guilty of harassment, or eviction, is committing an offence. SJ