MP calls for 'fairer deal' for park home residents

Park Homes are chalet-type accommodation that have different rules for selling properties than regular housing.

Shropshire contains the fourth largest number of park homes per local authority area, with a total of 39 sites, with most park home residents aged 65 years or older, with 78 per cent being fully retired.

Stuart Anderson, the MP for South Shropshire has called on the government to urgently review the park home ‘sales commission’, which allows site owners to charge residents up to 10 per cent on the resale of a home.

He said almost all park operators charge the full commission rate on every sale. The payment is unique to the park homes sector and is not replicated in any other sector, which the MP has branded an an “unjustifiable charge” that is “increasingly outdated and unfair.”

He added that park home residents in South Shropshire have told him that they feel “financially trapped” in their properties due to the prospect of being charged for moving if their circumstances happen to change.

Others have said that the commission is not justified because it is not earned and because maintenance costs are included in other fees that residents face – primarily the pitch fee, which averages £172 per month.

The MP has written to the Secretary of State to request that the charge is immediately reduced in the Autumn Budget in October, with a view to abolishing it in the longer term.

Stuart Anderson MP said: “Residents in park homes across South Shropshire have raised very real concerns with me about the commission rate payable on the resale of their homes, currently set at 10 per cent of the sale price.

“It is an unjustifiable charge which traps residents into their properties, unable to move on if their circumstances change. The commission is becoming increasingly outdated and unfair.

"The Secretary of State has power to review the commission and the rate that it set. I have called on her to do so – with a view to abolishing it in the longer term, while taking steps to reduce it when she delivers her first Autumn Budget on October 30, 2024.”