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Home  Warning Bulletins Warning Bulletin No 31. Why You're paying too much pitch fee.
PHRAA, Park Home Residents Action Alliance | Wednesday, 19 November 2008 |
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The Park Home Residents Action Alliance (PHRAA) a voluntary National Park Home Association working exclusively for the right of Park Homeowners towards a FAIR DEAL is launching this Petition to give ALL Park Homeowners the opportunity to take an active part in obtaining a secure future free of explotation.
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Warning Bulletin No 31. Why You're paying too much pitch fee. |
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Written by colin packman
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Thursday, 11 October 2007 |
WARNING BULLETIN NO. 31
Why You're Paying Too Much Pitch Fee.
Poundland & 99p stores are just two national examples of successful businesses that thrive on selling a wide range of quality merchandise over recent years, costing no more than £1. And whatever you may think of Goverment, for many years we have benefited from low inflation. Except of course that there are those who never fail to ignore the low inflation, as greed takes control of their minds. Unlike Poundland & Co, these guys are forever creating new ruses to extract unjustified sums of money from those of us living in park homes and lodges on their land. Its nothing new - been going on for years, but how many had really taken stock of such demands at the time.
Chances are your park owner has always issued a demand that £X is due from a given date, and has duly been paid. In fact, the lawful annual request MUST be in the form of a proposal, to which you can legally object, if there is a valid reason. As an exercise, if one goes back to, say 1983, when commission rates were reduced by 5% to 10%, evidence shows that simultaneously, park operators were demanding pitch fee increases by whatever sum they came up with, to "compensate" for an income loss that could never be accurately predicted in advance. This trick has been pulled a number of times since - twice this century, following the introduction of the "pass through" electricity system, where wild claims of losses caused pitch fees to again rise unjustly. It also felt that a number of park operators who believed, like most of us did, that the commission rate would be reduced by the government to around 7 and 1/2 %, had in advance, created their own method of recouping as an yet unknown and in any case, unpredictable future commision income!
But thats not all, in the 90's there was another scam hich rose out of a court case that argued that parks within a certain radius of each other could raise their fees to that of the highest in the area. This flawed decision took no account whatsoever of the obvious fact that one was not comparing "like with Like"! No two parks are identical. Further more, there was another version of a "catching up" process which brought single unit fees closer to those of twins. If we add to the mix, the scams, such as seeking "double recovery" which is unlawful; charging for the same item or service twice, and the more recent "I overlooked the fact that electricity/gas/water had gone up. You owe me £XX", but failing to come up with proof, when challenged.
Although, of course, it is impossible to accurately calculate any given example, without the full facts being available, it is very clear and easy to understand that, had there not been such activity along the lines described today, you would be paying far less than you are. The worst cases could amount to 50% +.
Whilst most of you are aware that the RPI (which I prefer to term the Rising Prices Indicator) is a figure that the park owners "shall have regard to", some astute residents have made clear that the "basket of goods", used to define this figure, bears little resemblance to the items that relate to running a park home site. If, for example, one of the major factors for the above average RPI is, say, a steep rise in the price of cigarettes, beer, wine and air travel, it is surely fair to conclude that none of these items have any bearing whatsoever on the running of a park! How that would stand up in a court of law, one cannot say, but it surely is an unfair burden; especially when all the above factors, where applicable in an individual case, are taken into account.
Buy realistically, the bigger question, can the vulnerable, elderly or infirm of this country living in a mere park home, be expected to come up trumps agains a multi million £ industry and their lawyers?
Compiled for PHRAA by Colin Packman. President. August 2007
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 October 2007 )
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