Very, very stressful months - static caravan owner from Coventry
The last few months have been "very, very stressful", according to Sandra Thompson, after she and husband Mark bought a static caravan.The caravan at a park near York was purchased in 2019 and the price was £66,000 including decking.Annual site fees for the Thompsons, from Coventry, were free for the first year and then £3,995. But in just three years, Mr Thompson said they were facing a demand for £7,000.Allerthorpe Golf and Country Park said fee increases reflected its increased costs and enhanced offering.
The couple eventually asked the site to buy back their lodge and now have a £40,000 debt.Mrs Thompson said: "You feel embarrassed in one way that you've done this and why didn't you think about it more?"But you look at the dream and think 'no, this is what we want to do, we're at that time in our life where we can do it'. "But then you think 'we did read all the contracts, we did everything that we thought... was right'."
In September 2024, the couple asked the site to buy back their lodge.The sales manager offered £23,000 – little more than a third of what they had paid.Mrs Thompson has said they had no choice but to accept: "I just said, yeah, let's move on. It is making you ill."But soon after leaving, they were shocked to see their lodge back up for sale, in exactly the same lakeside spot, for £110,000 - £87,000 more than they had been been paid for it.Mrs Thompson stated that at one point "Mark... I don't think he slept for weeks"."It was just, you know, taking his toll on it. He didn't wanna go up there and have the discussions all the time, so that was the last straw."Mr Thompson said: "I was driving up there sometimes and all I was thinking about is what I'm gonna say to the manager when I get there, not 'oh, I can't wait to get there to sit on the decking to have a few drinks and enjoy the sunshine'."
Mrs Thompson said the couple had "taken a mortgage out to fund it in the first place"."We've still got that debt now."Their story began with wanting to be closer to their son in Leeds."We thought it'd be nice, lovely part of the country, to see York," Mrs Thompson said."Our son has now had our first grandchild, so that was even better, so we thought we'd spend lots of time having our grandchild there and meeting up with our family."We did. We used it for a long time and friends joined us there and family joined us there."Allerthorpe Golf and Country Park said site fee increases "reflect the growing cost of operations" and "the significantly enhanced offering".It strongly rejected any suggestion of deception, saying "the final decision on whether a caravan remains on park is a business and operational matter and the listing price reflects significant upgrades and premium location, not simply the original unit value".
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