UK media are increasingly reporting on instances of holiday park staff or even the owners using intimidation tactics when their customers complain
Legal pressure
Here at European Consumer Claims (ECC) we have been dealing with holiday park consumer claims since 2024, and our team has witnessed thousands of instances of unfair contracts. A large part of our job is to identify questionable contracts and instruct our legal partners to challenge them.
Another aspect of our work is to identify when parks have behaved in ways which are unfair, even by the standards of their own contracts.
Finally, and perhaps most challenging is to claim for situations where the client was promised something verbally which later turned out to be untrue. Believe it or not, this is possible to rectify more often than most people assume.
Parks are businesses. When people ask for financial compensation, the parks push back. Every business has that right. Our side makes their case, the parks counter-argue. There are legal adjudication mechanisms designed to rule fairly for all concerned.
As you might expect, often the aggrieved consumer is in the right, and when they have a professional claims firm in their corner who is capable of overcoming park solicitor tactics, they are likely to win their case.
Parks who fail to win by legal means have been accused of using less palatable strategies to bring ‘difficult’ customers in line.
“We know where you are…”
Asha and Jason Ross were looking for an investment and bought a lodge at a park in North Yorkshire. The couple told the BBC that the salesman promised they could make up to £1000 a week profit from renting the unit out, and that it would “increase in value like a house.”
Six weeks later, the couple had only made £180 from two bookings. Concluding that lodge ownership was not going to be the investment opportunity promised, they decided to sell back to the park. The park then offered them a price ‘below’ what they had paid, meaning they would incur a “huge financial loss” (their words).
The Rosses told the BBC that they sought legal advice, and shortly afterwards got a call from the park sales manager which they recorded. The manager was abusive, swore, gave the couple what they felt was a veiled threat: “We know where you are, don’t we?”
Mrs Ross told the BBC they felt shaken: “You start thinking who are we actually dealing with here and how dangerous are they?”
Fee hikes force couple into financial loss
In the same article, the BBC reported the case of Mark and Sandra Thompson, who felt bullied by a Pocklington park into selling their £66,000 caravan back to the park for £23,000 after fee hikes from free for the first year, to £3995, then £7000.
After the park bought back the unit for this 65% price drop, the BBC discovered that the lodge was immediately back on sale, for £90,000!
Terrified
Owners at a well known Newquay park told Cornwall Live that there was wide scale bullying of people who complained about conditions at the park. They claim that the park has told people to remove posts on Facebook, or they will be evicted the next day.
A local charity representative, Michelle told ITV she had multiple complaints of park staff entering units unannounced, with with one resident saying she was terrified.
‘Fear and intimidation’
Care worker Penny Moreland described what she saw as a ‘culture of fear and intimidation at her Kent park.’ Penny bought the lodge hoping to have found a long term home at a reasonable price, but told Kent Online she was issued ‘draconian conditions‘ for life on the park as soon as the contract was signed: “I was also given strict orders to never question any of the park’s policies. The penalty for doing so would be having my caravan permanently removed from the park and have additional charges imposed for this.
“Also forbidden under the same penalty of caravan removal was any type of direct communication with the site owner.. If I saw him around the park, I was to avoid contact and never engage with him. Penny described the attitude of the park owners as: “Incredibly demeaning.” She recalled: “The environment here is degrading, and interactions with site management often leave me feeling humiliated and powerless.
“During a party held by the owner, a family member publicly stated: ‘we are millionaires and you are just people who live in our garden’.’
“Aggression, bullying and harassment”
In 2024 Panorama reported on residents of a Lancashire site’s claims that they were being bullied and harassed. The BBC reported that lodge owner Mike Chesworth told Blackpool County Court: “Residents have had to put up with aggression, bullying and harassment tactics and that leaves them scared and not knowing what is going on.
“It has got to a point that they will not open doors – that’s how scared.”
Many Park residents spoke anonymously to the Panorama team, but Mike and one other resident called Alison Porter-Garroch had the courage to speak on camera, thereby revealing their identities to the park owners and management.
Unexplained fires
Were they right to speak out? Following the airing of this Panorama episode, there ensued a long period of bitter disputes between the owner and the two residents who appeared on the Panorama exposé (Mike and Alison).
Then a year later, on the final day of a 28 day eviction order (which Mike and Alison had committed to ignoring) the BBC reported that both of their mobile homes, situated on opposite sides of the park, went up in flames within 90 minutes of each other.
No other lodges were affected besides those belonging to Mike and Alison.
Mike and Alison’s lodges were completely destroyed by the two separate fires.
Expert comment
Greg Wilson is the CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC). The firm at the forefront of the compensation battle for mis-sold and unfairly treated holiday park owners.
“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg unfortunately,” Greg reveals. “We have had around 30,000 enquiries about holiday park consumer abuse so far and a significant percentage of the correspondents refer to bullying of some sort.
“Whilst there are many fair and honest park operators, there definitely appears to be a darker side to the industry.
“The country is taking notice, thanks to the widespread media coverage. And thankfully there are reliable legal avenues to reclaim any money lost due to unfair business activities.”
If you believe you have been bullied or mis-sold by a holiday park operator, contact our team for a free, confidential consultation.