Rachel Hopkins

I will carry on, I am afraid. When residents sell their homes, they have to pay up to 10% of the sale price to the site owner. That can amount to tens of thousands of pounds, with little clarity about what the payment covers. One constituent recently told me that their home could sell for £280,000, resulting in a £28,000 payment to the site owner “for doing nothing,” in her words. The commission has real consequences for park home residents, effectively acting as a deduction from the owner’s wealth and limiting how much they can reinvest in a new home, use for care or rely on as financial security. Most park home owners are retirees who bought their homes outright using savings or proceeds from selling a traditional house, and they often rely on that capital later in life to fund care, to relocate or for other essential needs. Alongside that commission, residents must also pay ongoing pitch fees for the land their homes sit on. Fees are typically reviewed annually, and often rise with inflation. That may sound reasonable, but those increases compound over time, especially for those on fixed incomes. Although pitch fees are intended to cover maintenance and site services, residents frequently express concerns about transparency and value for money. Another of my constituents living in a park home wrote to me last year and told me that her pitch fee was more than £200 per month. She stated that “this should cover maintenance to the site, but in our case the owner does not do any maintenance, resulting in a roadway that is not fit for purpose.” Overall, the current park home financial structure raises serious questions about fairness, transparency and long-term sustainability. I welcome the Minister’s action in recent months to launch a renewed call for evidence on the rationale for a commission payment on the sale of a park home, and to publish the responses from the previous research report. I look forward to receiving further updates on the Government’s plans to address this issue following the conclusion of the consultation on 29 May. I hope that that will bring long overdue reform for my constituents.