The buying guide
How buying a park home works, and where it differs from a house
The short version: you buy the home, the park keeps the land, and you pay an annual pitch fee for the plot. There is no stamp duty and no chain. The paperwork is a licence or a Mobile Homes Act agreement, and you have it in your hands at least four weeks before you sign.
The four steps
Step 1
Choose the park, then the home
Start with where you want to be. Each park page carries the same information — facilities, guide prices, the pitch fee, and the local list the parks team keeps: pubs, supermarkets, doctors, the station. Then look at the homes for sale on it.
Step 2
View it
Book a viewing through the site or by phone. You meet someone from the park, walk the plot, see the home if it is sited, and see the model at the show home if it is not. Bring the dog.
Step 3
Reserve, and read
A reservation fee holds the plot while the paperwork is prepared. You receive the licence or Mobile Homes Act agreement, the park rules, the pitch fee schedule and the written statement the Act requires at least 28 days before you are asked to sign. Take legal advice; we recommend it.
Step 4
Complete and move in
The balance is paid, the keys are handed over, and the home is yours. A new home carries the manufacturer's warranty. From reservation to keys is usually six to ten weeks for a home in stock; longer for one built to order.
Holiday lodge or residential home
Most of our parks
A lodge under a 12-month holiday licence
Yours to use on any day of the year. The one condition is that it is not your only or main home, so you keep an address elsewhere. No council tax on the lodge. Letting is usually allowed within the licence, and the park can manage it for you. The licence runs for a fixed term, typically twenty to thirty years, and says how the pitch fee is reviewed and what happens when you sell.
Holiday lodges for saleBeechwood and Tarvin Sands
A residential home under the Mobile Homes Act
A full-time home with the protections of the Mobile Homes Act 2013: the right to live there indefinitely, a pitch fee reviewed once a year with notice and a right to challenge, a park obliged to maintain the site, and a sale commission capped at 10%. Council tax applies, usually Band A. You receive the written statement the Act requires at least 28 days before signing.
Residential homes for saleAgainst buying a house
| A park home | A house | |
|---|---|---|
| You buy | The home. The park keeps the land and grants you the right to keep the home on the plot. | The house and the land it stands on. |
| Stamp duty | None. There is no transfer of land. | Payable above the threshold. |
| Conveyancing | A licence or agreement to read, not a title to investigate. Days, not months. | Searches, title, chain. |
| Ongoing cost | An annual pitch fee to the park, plus utilities and insurance. Council tax on a residential home. | Council tax, utilities, insurance, maintenance of everything. |
| Living there | A residential home: full time, under the Mobile Homes Act. A holiday lodge: all year on a 12-month park, with an address elsewhere. | Full time. |
| Selling | Yours to sell, on the park, with the park's commission set by the Act (residential) or the licence (holiday). | Yours to sell, with an agent's fee. |
What you pay, in full
- The price of the home — the guide price on each page, for the home sited on its plot with decking, parking and services connected. New homes come furnished to the manufacturer's specification.
- The pitch fee — £5,000 a year on a holiday park, £3,000 on a residential one, payable to the park.
- Utilities — gas, electricity and water are metered to the home and billed quarterly by the park. Broadband is your own subscription; where the park laid the fibre, the company that supplied it serves the home for the first eighteen months.
- Insurance — the home must be insured. Specialist park-home policies are a few hundred pounds a year.
- Council tax — on a residential home only.
- Nothing else. No stamp duty, no ground rent, no service charge beyond the pitch fee, and no fee for buying through this site.
Questions people ask
The annual charge for keeping your home on its plot: £5,000 a year on a holiday park, £3,000 on a residential one. On a residential park it covers the rent of the land your home stands on and the drainage; on a holiday park, the rent of the land and the upkeep of the pitches. Utilities are metered separately and billed quarterly. On a residential park the fee is reviewed once a year under the Mobile Homes Act, with notice and a right to challenge; on a holiday park the licence sets the review.
Ask the rest in person
Everything above is the general case. The specific case — this plot, this home, this licence — is a conversation with the park, and it is a better one on the deck than on the phone.