What’s the difference between a residential and a holiday park?

As much as we’d all love to holiday all year round, locating your park home for residential use requires a lot more consideration than that of a holiday home. If you’re looking to live on a park permanently, you need to ensure the licence allows you to do so.

There are two types of park licences; residential, where you can live permanently and holiday (sometimes referred to as leisure) where you can stay for holidays or extended visits.

In this blog post, we will outline the key difference between the two types of parks.

Residential parks

At first glance, residential parks are often gated communities, not only offering a location to site your home but also your own drive and garden space. There is however so much more that sets residential parks apart from traditional holiday parks.

Siting your Willerby Bespoke park home or lodge on a residential park allows you to nominate your park home as your primary residence. In doing so you are legally able to live in your home all year round, 12 months of the year.

It is key to remember that as your park home will be your permanent residence you will be subject to council tax. The bonus is that all park homes are classed as band A, so you will be paying the cheapest rate. As you pay tax on this property your post will be delivered and your bins collected as they would for a bricks-and-mortar property.

Once signed for your pitch has a 99+ year lease. Unlike holiday parks this means that you don’t have to worry about moving after a fixed period of time. Your annual pitch fee is also lower than on a holiday park.

Creating the right community is one of the key values of residential parks. In order to do so, they often have a set of criteria residents must meet in order to reside on the park. Most residential parks will insist that all occupants are over 45 years of age. It is worth checking with the park you're looking at as some parks insist on a minimum age of 65.

Other common criteria include:

• Children are not permitted to reside on the park permanently. They will however be more than welcomet to visit for short stays.
• Pets are discretionary by the park owner and there may be rules on the number of pets you can have living there.
• Residents are not be permitted to sublet their home.

Holiday parks

The key difference between holiday parks and residential parks is that they cannot be used as a permanent residence. Even if the park has a 12-month licence you will not be able to live in the park all year round and will be asked to provide proof that you have a primary address elsewhere.

Pitch tenures are shorter and once your negotiated tenancy is up you may be asked to upgrade your home or move from the pitch.

One of the main benefits of siting your home on a holiday park is that as they have been designed as holiday destinations they often have enhanced entertainment and leisure facilities when compared to residential parks. There is also generally no age limit for homeowners and most parks allow both pets and children.