Park Home Owners

Joshua Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing the debate. We have discussed these issues multiple times on the all-party parliamentary group on park homes, of which he is also a member.

Park home residents are often the forgotten home owners in our housing system. In this place we rightly discuss leaseholders, renters and first-time buyers, but we almost never talk about the 160,000 people who own park homes in England, four in five of whom are over 65. The quiet injustice that they have faced for many years is overwhelming. These people are overwhelmingly older residents, and most of the time are on fixed incomes. They choose this way of life, in park homes, because it is settled, affordable and within reach, when so much of the rest of the housing market is not. They pay their site fees and maintenance charges, and keep their homes in good order, often for decades.

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) talked about the issues with the agreements— eight months or 12 months—when people buy their homes. One reason for those issues is that when people buy their park homes, they are often told, “Don’t worry about conveyancing or solicitors. You don’t need that. It’s not important.” They would never have been told that if they bought another property, but that is okay when it comes to park homes. That is where quite a lot of the issues, including those faced by the hon. Lady’s constituent, come from.

When people come to sell their park home, the law steps in and takes 10% of the sale price—not the gain or profit, but the price. That is handed straight over to the site owner. That is not for services rendered at the point of sale, for an obligation that has been discharged, or for anything that we as Members can quantify and put our fingers on—or that the industry itself can explain—but just because they are selling their park home. For most park home owners, selling is not a choice, but a last resort: they are downsizing and moving closer to relatives, or, in quite a lot of cases, they are going to pay for care costs that age has made unavoidable.

At the precise moment when every single penny matters most, the system reaches into their pockets and takes a 10% slice. On a £300,000 park home, that is £30,000, but many park homes in my Maidenhead constituency go for upwards of £500,000, £550,000 or £600,000. That is a massive amount of money. It could pay for a lot of years of social care, but it is being taken out of the system—being paid for now by our local authorities—because of that 10%. That can determine whether someone dies in dignity or experiences difficulty at a time that should be secure.

I have at various times called the 10% commission unfair and illogical, and I stand by that. It singles out one group of home owners for a deduction. No leaseholder, freeholder or shared owner would ever tolerate that.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s point about sales commission charges. Given that we had a consultation into park home sales commission charges in 2022, which concluded that there was no good justification for them, does he agree that what we now need from the Government is not another a consultation, but a fixed timeline so that we can understand when real action will be taken on behalf of our constituents in park homes?

[Mr Joshua Reynolds]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Park home residents have had consultation after consultation over many years. Site owners will respond to the current Government consultation, because they have lawyers to back them up and support them in putting in their thoughts, but the park home owners I have spoken to worry that there is no point in submitting responses to yet another consultation when, as they see it, nothing is going to happen. I worry that far fewer park home owners will respond to this consultation, and we will therefore end up with a one-sided consultation.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. As he knows, there are many park homes across Bracknell Forest, which we both represent. I understand the scepticism that some have expressed about the call for evidence, but as he has identified, the Government need to put forward something that can stand up to those with very expensive lawyers behind them. Will he therefore take this opportunity to urge everyone who lives in a park home, whether in Bracknell Forest or elsewhere across the country, to contribute to that call for evidence, so that the evidence base can be as robust as it needs to be and we can abolish the 10% charge?

[Mr Reynolds]

I thank my constituency neighbour for that point. It is incredibly important that everybody responds to the consultation, so we must encourage more people to do so.

The financial cost of the 10% commission is only part of the story. We have heard time and again about unscrupulous site owners who have used intimidation to drive residents off their pitches. There are fewer bad actors who own sites than there were a number of years ago, but some still know that if they intimidate residents and force a sale, they will get a 10% commission. We see that time and again. In my constituency, one owner bought a site for £200,000. They then intimidated countless park home residents, who sold their properties, and made that £200,000 back within less than 12 months. That is the business model of unscrupulous site owners. We need to think about where the 10% commission came from. It has not always been 10%: it was 15% a number of years ago, so it is an arbitrary number.

I pay tribute to Sonia McColl OBE and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign. Over decades, she and the campaign have done what many in this place only wish we had been able to do. They secured two legislative changes: ending sale blocking, and shifting pitch fees from RPI to CPI, which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) spoke about. Sonia and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign have driven lots of the work that is happening here. Another petition is going to Downing Street later today. I was lucky to be able to present one to Downing Street last year, and I know that many of us are willing to submit them in future.

We need to be honest about what we are going to do. There is a consultation on the table, but lots of residents have been consulted before. I ask the Minister for a clear timeline for when we will see action, when we will have a conclusion with published responses, and when the 160,000 residents will get the fair deal that has been promised for so long but postponed for much longer.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing this important debate. I thank all other hon. Members who have participated, and like many of them I welcome the strong cross-party nature and tone of the debate. I have valued the opportunity to hear the individual stories hon. Members have shared, including some really egregious examples of harassment and intimidation, such as the case of Dennis, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume).

One challenge in considering law and policy in respect of park homes is the huge variation in arrangements across the approximately 1,832 sites in England. The more real case studies that can be brought to the Government’s attention, the greater rigour we can bring to policy development.

Despite representing less than 1% of housing stock, the park home sector is an important part of the housing market. Mobiles homes, as has been mentioned, provide housing for around 160,000 people, some of whom are among the most vulnerable in our society. As hon. Members are no doubt aware, park home sites are often advertised on the basis that they offer a luxurious, secure and supportive lifestyle, particularly for older people. In many cases, that is true, and it is important that several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith), mentioned that there are some great park home sites. Unfortunately, as the debate has powerfully reinforced, the experience of many park home owners is far removed from that idyllic vision.

I am unlikely to be able to cover all the points raised in this wide-ranging debate in the time available, but let me ensure that I at least cover the two main issues raised: site licensing and enforcement, and the commission payment. On licensing and enforcement, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 provides the foundational legislative underpinning for the site licensing regime operated by local authorities. The primary purpose of that regime is to ensure that sites are set up in the right places, which is why site owners are required to obtain planning permission to operate land as a caravan site. Unless a given site is exempt from having one, it will require a licence after planning permission has been granted, with relevant conditions attached by the local authority. The requirement for a licence is designed to ensure that sites and the amenities on them are properly maintained and kept safe for residents and other users.

The wide-ranging Mobile Homes Act 2013, introduced changes to the procedures and penalties for enforcement of site licence conditions on residential parks. The new site licensing system, subsequently brought into force in 2014, gave local authorities substantial enforcement powers, including the ability to issue compliance notices and the discretion to refuse to grant or transfer applications. It also provided local authorities with powers to charge annual fees, to provide the resources they need to carry out their functions.

Since 2021, there have been additional requirements for all site owners to be assessed by the local authority and placed on a local register of fit and proper persons. I commend Peter Aldous, a very valued former Member of this House, for the private Member’s Bill he took forward on that issue. A person can be included on the register, with or without conditions, for up to five years, and local authorities can charge fees to cover their functions in respect of the fit and proper person test. Taken together, those measures provide a robust range of powers for local authorities to draw on, and the Government expect them to be used effectively to ensure that sites are well managed by competent persons.

At this point, I want to acknowledge the commendable work done by individual local authorities over the years, as well as the notable successes some have had in ensuring that sites are well maintained and in successfully prosecuting non-compliant site owners. However, my Department is aware that some local authorities do not apply or enforce existing legislation as effectively as they could and should. There are a variety of reasons for that, including cost and, on occasion, lack of expertise, but in some cases local authorities might simply decide not to take appropriate enforcement action. I therefore encourage residents who have concerns about health and safety on their site to raise them initially with the local authority if the site owner fails to address the problem. They can then consider escalating the matter to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman if their local authority does not deal effectively with their complaint.

Turning to the commission payment, the 10% commission fee charged on the sale of park homes has been the subject of intense debate over many years, as we all know. Park home residents see it as an unfair and unjustified charge that has a negative impact on their finances and mobility. Site operators argue that the commission is a vital part of their income and that a substantial reduction in the commission rate would reduce total income without reducing expenditure, thus threatening the financial viability of parks. That important point was raised by the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale); there are many elements of this complex problem.

I fully understand hon. Members’ desire to secure change in this matter, and I assure those present that I share their impatience. Unfortunately—this is where I have to take issue slightly with the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan)—research undertaken by the previous Government was not conclusive on either the purpose of the commission or the impact of its removal or reduction. The final report, published in 2022, recommended further work to clarify the rationale of the commission so that the Government can make informed policy choices. In 2023, the then Government sought feedback from stakeholder representative bodies on the report’s recommendations. The feedback reinforced the view that there was no clarity or consensus in the sector on the rationale for the commission.

We are not consulting for consultation’s sake. There is a reason the Government published a call for evidence on 5 March this year concerning the rationale for the commission payment. Through that call for evidence, we are seeking to understand the following: the reasons for charging a commission before it became a statutory requirement in 1975, and whether those reasons have changed; what goods and services are paid for by the commission; how the commission rate is calculated to be a percentage of the future sale price of a park home; how the commission payment relates to other charges in the sector; and how receiving commission in the future enables site owners to meet their obligations effectively and efficiently.

To date, we have had 400 responses from park home residents. I encourage residents and site owners across the country to engage with that call for evidence before it closes on 29 May. I encourage all hon. Members here to tell their constituents about it so that we can get the maximum amount of evidence submitted. Then we can properly consider what, if any, changes are needed to the payment of a commission, what the options are and how they would impact on the sector.

[Mr Joshua Reynolds]

Many park home residents in Maidenhead have told me that complete swathes of the consultation are not relevant to residents but are to site owners. Can the Minister clarify which questions he expects residents to be able to respond to, because many feel that those questions are just not relevant to them?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am sorry to hear that feedback. We will take into account any feedback that park home residents wish to submit—even in general terms and outside the strict questions they have responded to—when we are making policy decisions. I emphasise once again that I want the widest possible response from across the country that grapples with the complexity and the particular arrangements in place on specific sites so that we can make informed choices.

I want to come on to the timeline, because several hon. Members have pressed me on it. Following an assessment of the responses received, we will publish a summary of them in the summer. I intend to outline our final position at the very latest by the end of this year. To respond to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), it is one of many priorities—but a very real priority—for the Government to bring the clarity that both park home residents and site owners require and have been calling for now for some years. I will strain every sinew to ensure that that happens as early as possible, but I give the commitment that we will have clarity on the position by the end of the year.

Hon. Members raised a series of other matters, including written agreements, contractual rights, conveyancing, the adequacy of existing redress mechanisms in respect of pitch fees, overcharging in relation to utilities, and harassment by site owners. I assure them that the Government either have taken action or are exploring action in a number of those areas. That might take a range of forms, such as raising awareness about the protections and enforcement mechanisms that already exist or providing further guidance. We are taking some very real steps, not least in respect of utilities, which I want to speak to briefly.