Dream lifestyle?
In 2023, popular content creators Whatta and Waila had made the decision to downsize their living arrangements in order to free up money for travel. “We wanted a better quality of life,” explains Whatta. Basing themselves in a park home seemed to tick all the boxes. It cost less than a house, and the couple were careful to check with the park (which they refrained from naming) that they could live there all year round if necessary as they did not have their travel plans worked out yet.
Whatta reports that the salesman assured them there was no reason at all why the pair couldn’t stay in the unit twelve months of the year if they wanted.
Reassured, Whatta and Waila paid almost £100,000 and moved in.
The reality
“We were going to be living in this lovely lodge in the countryside. The idea of it was perfect,” says Whatta. “In reality that’s not what happened at all. It was a nightmare.”
It took the couple several months to adjust to the smaller space, but they were doing their best to make it work. At that point, Whatta and Waila began having “difficulties with the park.”
“The site fees went up, and not in line with inflation,” says Whatta,“by quite a bit more. There were quarrels with the park over really silly things. In the end we realised that the place just wasn’t going to work out for us. We decided to sell.
Selling problems
“As per the licence agreement you have to give park an opportunity to make an offer, which you don’t have to take, before selling your lodge yourself. We had originally paid not far short of £100,000.
“They offered us £27,000 back. After 18 months.
“There was no way that we ever thought we would lose that amount of money. We politely declined and said we’d sell it ourselves.
Whatta and Waila listed their lodge on Facebook Marketplace and quickly found two buyers for a much better price. However before a sale could go through, the couple received a letter from the park ordering them to pack up and remove their caravan from the site within 28 days. If it was not removed in that time, the park told them, the lodge would be dismantled and scrapped. The park also demanded a ‘disconnection fee’ of £2500. Whatta and Waila chose not to disclose the rule they had broken, but did reveal “trust us, it was a pathetic reason.”
“Get off!”
The panicked couple spent eight hours the next day calling every park they could find across the whole UK, from Scotland down to Cornwall. Only a couple of parks would take the lodge, but they wanted a staggering £100,000 for the pitch.
Whatta and Wailer still had the buyer interested, but the park refused to allow the sale, demanding the lodge be removed from the site.
“They told us no! Get off” reveals the likeable Yorkshireman with a grimace.
“The eviction was set for the 26th of April and we had to get out of there because it was getting very very intimidating. We put CCTV up and changed the locks. I work from home and I kept all the curtains shut. I was very worried because they said ‘if you don’t move it, we’ll dismantle it (the lodge). We were having sleepless nights over it. We didn’t know whether someone was going to rock up in the middle of the night and have all the electric and water turned off.
The worried couple moved all of their stuff into storage and themselves into Waila’s mother’s house. Whatta and Waila both describe the park contract as “not being worth the paper it’s written on”.
ECC to the rescue
“At this point we knew we had to get some legal advice,” says Whatta. “And that’s when we found ECC. It’s not a plug, we’re not sponsored by them we’re not getting any commission or anything like that. We’re just telling you because that’s who we used to get some money back basically.
“So anyway we started the process with ECC.
Waila spent time documenting the many rule breaches which the park consistently ignored. She collated this evidence for ECC’s legal partners to demonstrate that the park were unfairly targeting the couple to push them off the property.
Whatta is very clear: “This is not park specific. This is the industry. If you are considering a holiday park home we urge you to check out the media and reports before you go any further and hand over any money.
“ECC, European Consumer Claims started off specialising in timeshare scandals ten years go, but they got wind of the holiday park industry. They speak to people on a daily basis that are in our position and they have helped numerous amounts of people.
“We didn’t really know which way to turn. We needed somebody that specialised in this. We did seek local solicitors but they told us they didn’t really know about this industry. So we hired ECC.
Unregulated business and mis-selling
“We obviously had to pay. There were three options: We either pay ECC to try and get our money back; we move the lodge off the park, which wasn’t doable; or we sell the lodge back to the park for £27,000.
“We told the park that we had sought legal advice,” adds Waila. “I think they thought that we were lying. They even told us that our legal advisers were wrong.”
“This whole (holiday park) industry is completely and utterly unregulated,” continues Whatta. “The parks are there to get you in, then find a reason to get you out, so they can recycle that money…. That’s what they want. Quick turnover. They don’t want people staying for 20, 30 years because the pitch is too valuable to them. They want you in, rip you off, and get you out.
Whatta notes that the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is the main legislation protecting holiday park buyers. “The problem with this is proving that you were mis-sold, and this is where ECC come into play. They gather all the information about conversations that have been had, whether by WhatsApp, licence agreements… They compile all that and determine whether you’ve got a case for mis-selling, which in our case they determined that we had.
“ECC managed to stop the eviction.
“To cut a long story short, we agreed a figure to settle out of court and we got two thirds of our money back. We are taking this as a win. Happy days, and we can put the last two years of utter, utter (*expletive*) behind us.”
Expert comment
“The holiday park industry is notorious for questionable business practices and mis-selling,” agrees Greg Wilson, CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC), “and holding them to account usually requires expert input and assistance.”
“The business plan of selling the caravan at a high price, then driving the customer out with unreasonable rules and unfair price hikes is well documented and has been covered widely in the media. The park will then engineer a situation where the former client has no choice but to sell the caravan back to them (the park) for a fraction of what they (the former client) originally paid.
“Then finally, the park will sell the caravan to the next customer for the same high price they sold it for the last time, making a huge profit in the process.
“That is the business model and as we have seen many times, the park will go to insidious lengths to both force the existing customer out, then prevent them from selling to anyone other than the park, and for an insultingly low price.”
