Notice Board
4th February 2009
(1) Park Home Legal Services Ltd has been a stakeholder to the Government (currently the Department of Communiites and Local Government) for a number of years. Company employees have spent many hours of their free time preparing and submitting responses to various pieces of proposed legislaiton which affect park homes.
The company's experience of dealing with the Government in relation to 'consultation' is now over. The Government ignored the company's pleas that the new implied terms which came into effect 1st October 2006, should address the common abuse of site owners preventing sales by one means or another. As a result of being named as a stakeholder in Government documents, the company's name was associated with the deficient legislation which emerged and which falls far short of dealing with a number of the common abuses. This uncomfortable position could not continue.
This company does not support the Government in its current endeavours to transfer the powers of the County Court to the Residential Property Tribunal ("RPT") for a variety of already stated and practical reasons. Deficient legislation cannot be 'patched up' either by the courts or importantly, the RPT.
As a result of the foregoing, the company wrote to the Minsiter responsible for park homes, Iain Wright MP on the 21st November 2008, requiring him to take steps to immediately remove the company's name from the list as a key organisation to be consulted on Park Home issues. The company's request has been acted upon.
2nd June 2009
(2) Four so-called 'Factsheets' written by the Department of Communities & Local Government (DCLG) are now available. They cover a range of park home issues and can be downloaded from the DCLG website. There is a link address available on our 'Links' page to the DCLG website. We understand the Factsheets will be made generally available from such places as local government offices, Citizens Advice Bureau's, Help the Aged etc.
Considerable caution should be exercised if applying the law as advocated by the Factsheets. There are errors and omissions and some of the information is actually wrong.
A series of articles relating to the Factsheets will be published starting July 2009 in the Park Home & Holiday Caravan magazine. In due course these unedited articles will be made available on this website on the 'Articles' page.
6th January 2010
(3) We are given to understand that there is insufficient Parliamentary time before the next election for both Houses of Parliament to process the Government's proposal that the Residential Property Tribunal (with one exception: that of termination cases) should take over all park home issues. Clearly this will also apply to the Government's last set of proposals to endow local authorities with additional legislative powers to deal with the unscrupulous park owners with a 'fit and proper person' test.
We observe that should a change of Government occur after the next General Election, it is likely to be some while before that Government get down to considering park home legislation.
14th July 2010
(4) Grant Shapps MP Minsiter responsible for the Department of Communities and Local Governement has announced that the Coalition Government propose going ahead with the transfer of "most" of the County Court's powers to the Residential Property Tribunal ("RPT"). The draft legislation is not yet available to view and consider so we have no idea what "most" means.
The burning question those who have to approve the legislation must ask themselves is, if the current legislation is both defective and inadequate to deal with the common abuses and the majority who really understand the issues, know that only too well, how will the situation improve with the RPT dealing with the issues rather than a County Court? The RPT will be unable to 'make it up' as they go along.
In our view, those who have the opportunity to question the Governments intended changes should be asking more searching questions of those promoting such changes. Simply accepting defensive replies and non-workable so-called remedies from Government mouthpieces as was the case when the new implied terms were debated in both Houses during 2006 is simply not good enough.
The full press release can be found on: http://www.communities.gov.uk/statements/corporate/parkhomesreforms