CARAVAN SITE RANSOM DEMAND- £700 just to move a few feet! Is this legal?

[MG.]

Hi,

 

After more than 10 years on a static caravan site we want to leave and sell our caravan to someone off site. But the site owner charges £700 just to move the caravan a few hundred feet from it's pitch to an area where it can be picked up.

 

They say we have to pay this and that no one - even us - can come onsite to trailer away the caravan themselves.

 

It feels like we're being held to ransom for £800 in order to get access to our own property!

 

Anyone else have any experiences of this?

 

Any advice much appreciated. Thanks.

 

M

[greasmonkey]

is there anything in the rental contract that says you must pay to have it

moved was it on site when you purchased it

[creepin60]

Ooooh these caravan sites and their unfair trading. I had big problems with a caravan site when selling my 'van so I downloaded a copy of the OFT Guidance on Unfair Terms in Holiday Caravan Agreements, OFT 734 I think it is.

 

If you have a look in there I'm sure it says somewhere that they can only charge disconnection fees at a reasonable rate, but that could mean anything. However, I'm pretty sure that if you sell your 'van off site then unless there is a substantial reason why the unit can't be accessed, I think you may have every right to challenge what they are charging and move it yourself i.e. by your own contractor, but you will have to have a look at the regulations to confirm that.

 

If you do have to pay, which in some respects may be the best thing to do to save any problems in getting access to your 'van, keep a record of everything, get them to put everything in writing especially a breakdown of their charges. Then firstly once you have accessed your 'van, write and complain to the site. You know as well as anybody else who has had dealings with a site that the reply will be that they are right and you are wrong so the next step is to take them to court on the Small Claims track and get some of your money back. I got my pre-paid site fees back when I sold a 'van despite the site and the trade associations telling me that I had agreed to the terms and conditions. I proved unfair terms. Get quotes yourself if you can for disconnection and moving so that you can prove they are being unreasonable.

 

Not too sure if any of this helps but it may be worth a go anyway. These sites do trade very unfairly and unfortunately because owners are mostly too wary about challenging them, they are getting away with charging what they like. Don't bother going to their trade associations, they just act for their members and seem to not only condone the overcharging but actively encourage it. There doesn't seem any way of being able to complain about these trade associations either when they are obviously not enforcing OFT regulations.

 

The more people who make complaints to the OFT/Trading Standards about the unfair trading of caravan sites the better perhaps then we as consumers will be able to exercise our rights without any fear of reprisals.