Mobile Homes Act 2013

It gives the council greater powers to monitor Mobile Home Site licenses to ensure licence conditions are met and to carry out effective enforcement action where appropriate.

We are also able to charge a fee for all site licensing functions.

Changes to the Mobile Homes Act

The Caravan and Control of Development Act 1960 requires the Council to licence sites that have gained or are in the process of obtaining the required planning permission to operate as a recognised caravan, mobile home or park home site. These sites are commonly known as 'relevant protected sites'.

On 26 March 2013 the Government passed the Mobile Homes Act 2013 (MHA 2013) which is designed to give greater protection to occupiers of residential caravan and mobile homes. Further information can be found in the Links section.

Changes to the sale/gifting of park homes and site rules

From 26 May 2013 this legislation introduced changes to the sale/gifting of park homes and amendments to existing implied terms relating to the annual pitch fee review procedure on parks. In addition to this it is intended that existing site rules will eventually be replaced with new site rules to be deposited with the Local Authority.

Changes to licensing and the introduction of licence fees

The MHA 2013 has introduced some important changes to park home site licensing on 1 April 2014. These changes include the ability for Local Authorities to charge site owners a fee for applying for a site licence, for amendments or transfers of existing licences, and for an annual fee for existing site licences. Failure to pay the annual fee may eventually lead to the site licence being revoked.

Changes to the enforcement of site licence breaches

From 1 April 2014 Local Authorities will be able to serve compliance notices on site owners where site licence conditions are breached. These notices will set out what the site owner needs to do to correct the breaches and the timescales, and the notice will attract a fee. Failure to comply with the notice would be a criminal offence.

Further advice

The Government has also extended the role of the Leaseholder Advisory Service (Tel: 020 7383 9800) so that park home residents can contact them for help and advice. See Links section.

This will be particularly helpful for matters where the Local Authority does not have a role such as site rules, pitch fees or the selling/gifting of park homes.

Boston Borough Mobile Homes Fees Policy

This policy details the fees to be charged for all the licensing functions associated with the Mobile Homes Act 2013. See Downloads section.

Public Register of Deposited Site Rules

Site rules are different to site licence conditions and are put in place by the owner of a site to ensure acceptable standards are maintained which will be of benefit to occupiers or will promote community cohesion on the site.

Owners of mobile homes sites have 12 months from the 1 April 2014 to deposit site rules with the local authority. Once submitted site rules will be published here.

Boston Borough Council has two site, Lincolnshire Park Homes Limited, Lea Park, Church Road, Boston & RS Hill & Sons, Hall Hills Caravan Park, Tattershall Road, Boston.

Deposited Site Rules

The following site rules are available in the Downloads section:

• LPH Ltd - Lea Park Site Rules
• RS Hill & Sons Ltd - Hall Hills Park Rules