Park Homes

Debate between Robert Buckland and Andrew Miller

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, which has not been made before. We know that unscrupulous site owners will drive down the value of a park home, buy it at that low value and, sometimes, re-sell the same home to make a fast profit. That is an unacceptable abuse of the current situation.

A concrete proposal that the Minister could consider is whether we should adopt a system of deemed acceptance by an owner after a certain period. My experience locally and more generally is that there is often a disastrous combination of indifference and incompetence mixed with cynicism and a wish to make an illicit profit, but why should we allow sites where there is that cocktail to benefit from the current regulations? We should punish incompetence and indifference by adopting principles such as deemed acceptance. Currently, the onus is on the park home owner to seek from the court—I welcome the fact that it will soon be a tribunal—a declaration that the person to whom they wish to sell their property has been approved. Many hon. Members have asked whether that is the right balance. Are we asking too much of people, many of whom are vulnerable, or of the dependants of people who have died and left their park home as part of their bequest? Should we not redress the balance and put the ball back in the court of the park home owner when it comes to sales? I urge the Minister seriously to consider the principle of deemed acceptance and whether it can be worked into a revised schedule. That would be a better way of dealing with the legislation than tweaking it as we have in the past few years.

[Andrew Miller]

Let me put to the hon. Gentleman a point that I tried to make in my speech. If the park home owner has maintained the property within the site’s rules, why should the site owner have any say about whom the sale should be made to? I have not heard a rational reason why there should be any blockage at that point.

[Mr Buckland]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that there is a balance to strike. The site owner owns the land and the property, and we have to accept that there are many good, decent and proper site owners. That is why I am talking, as he did, about striking a delicate balance. We have to be careful of the age-old problem of using a sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut. None of us wants to punish good site owners, but hon. Members the length and breadth of the land keep coming up against the rotten apples that are damaging the reputation of park homes, undermining their viability for the future and, potentially, starving the country of a useful source of housing supply. I regret that I see no other alternative than for park homes to fall under the ambit of proper regulation by a local authority.

Involving local authorities at the beginning, when the site owner wants to purchase the land, is a good way of engaging them throughout the process. Many colleagues will be aware that one of the problems is that local authorities are involved only reactively, when they are faced with a particular challenge or problem, or a prosecution, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, so they are psychologically on the back foot. There is a good case to be made for local authorities taking a proactive role, which is why I commend the approach that Members want the Government to take.

The time for tinkering has passed; it is time for a wholesale root-and-branch look at the regulations. If there is no time for new legislation, I urge the Government at the very least to look at the entire ambit of the schedule to the amended and re-amended Mobile Homes Act. Let us get things right for future generations and give current park home residents peace of mind. Let us allow them the principle of quiet enjoyment.