At Holiday Park Advice Centre we receive hundreds of enquiries from Holiday and Residential Park home owners every week. From the wide-ranging problems that we are told about, there is a major issue that stands out as the largest contributing factor to their financial loss….resale values.
It´s a silent problem that most owners are not aware of until the time comes to sell.
…bought for a fortune, sold for a fraction
At Holiday Park Advice Centre we receive hundreds of enquiries from Holiday and Residential Park home owners every week. From the wide-ranging problems that we are told about, there is a major issue that stands out as the largest contributing factor to their financial loss….resale values.
It´s a silent problem that most owners are not aware of until the time comes to sell. Deciding to sell a park home usually comes from either a change in circumstances, meaning the park home is no longer fitting with their lifestyle or more commonly because the cost of running the park home has become so high that it has become unaffordable, thus making it a financial burden.
Once this realisation hits home, owners start to look at their exit options which is where many find out that getting out of a holiday park contract isn´t as simple as was made out to them when they purchased.
The contract small print is often overlooked when entering into a holiday park home contract. New owners are exhilarated and looking forward to making memories rather than regarding what may or may not happen in the future.
When revisiting the contract after making the decision to sell, many owners find that there are restrictions on how they are able to sell their holiday park home.
During the sales process, it is common for important issues such as depreciation or restrictions on selling to be under-explained or left out of the sales pitch…after all, it doesn´t help a sale if you reveal the negatives of holiday park home ownership.
Some contracts contain selling restrictions or prevent owners from selling their unit privately, instead obligating the owners to give the park the option to buy it back.
Here´s where the resale shock can really smack owners hard…the park operator can offer whatever they see fit for the unit, not what the market value is. If a park operator offers an owner 10% of their original purchase price, there´s nothing the owner can do except accept the paltry offer and walk away or continue to try to manage the increasing costs that pushed them to exit.
Owners feel trapped. Ripped off. Angry. Lied to.
They feel like there is nothing they can do. Some feel that they are to blame because they did not read the contract properly, but this is mostly not the case. Many owners are deliberately misled about future values of park homes, with some even being told that the value would increase like a bricks and mortar property and was such a great investment.
We specialise in holiday ownership contracts where they do not comply with the law, contain unfair clauses, or are weighted in favour of the park operator. In many cases, it is not what has been said but what has not been said or left out of the sales process which causes issues for holiday park home owners, and can give grounds to claim money back.
If you have been affected by resale restrictions or received a fraction of what you originally paid, then Holiday Park Advice Centre may be able to help you.
You don´t have to accept financial loss caused by your park home ownership.