Purchase price, rent and what other costs?

There are many helpful articles that will explain the costs associated with the purchase of a park home and some even mention home insurance and council tax but otherwise suggest a key attraction is that of low maintenance.

Few explain the maintenance requirements as required by your home insurance provider and those needed to meet the GoldShield code of practice, both essential if you unfortunately ever need to claim.  More importantly failing to do the maintenance is likely to increase the necessity to carry out repair work for which you find you cannot make a claim.

Here is an extract from a respected park home insurance company's web pages.

 'All Park Home Manufacturers recommend that you check the outside walls of your park home regularly for such hairline cracks and you should have the cracks rectified immediately. Even if there are no hairline cracks you should have your home colour-washed no less than every two years. You must inspect your home regularly for hairline cracks in the outer walls of your home.
The external walls of your home are clad with plywood (not marine ply) and the joins are bridged with a fibreglass webbing, and then painted over with textured paint such as Resitex, or Protected Textured Coating (PTC). Over time, the UV rays from the sun, and continual expansion and contraction of the wood, will create hairline cracks in the external paint which must be fixed immediately to prevent water getting under the paint.'  

 'Should you not rectify these faults immediately then not only will water penetrate the paint and make the paint come away from the timber below is, but will then start to rot the outer walls and also create damp and mould on the inside of your home. Should this occur, this is not covered by your traditional Park Home Insurance policy or your Platinum Seal or Gold Shield Warranty as this is a lack of maintenance and not a manufacturing defect or an insured event on your traditional home insurance policy.'

At first glance this message seems deeply concerning.

The above advice is echoed by GoldShield's (NCC) code of practice. There are some variations in construction where other materials are used for the walls and textured paint but the requirements are much the same. 

The same is to be said for the underside of your home.

Regular inspections are required and neglect here can cause serious defects to occur.

Regularly checking of the home is in itself not too onerous as probably we all subconsciously inspect our homes when cleaning windows, gardening and the like.

Accessing and inspecting the underside and roof is an altogether different matter and ones which in most cases will require a contractor to be employed.  

Currently towards the end of 2020 an all round annual inspection costs around £250.00 with the repainting ranging from £700.00 to £1200.00 bi annually (Goldshield say first painting within two years of siting and then every three years after that) and this depends on the colour.  Brighter colours may need more coats of paint.

Potentially, in the first 10 years of your home's life it might cost around £8000.00 in maintenance costs.

If your roof is clad in Metrotiles as many homes are, this comes with a 40 year warranty.  But this too comes with a caveat that the roof is kept clear of lichen and moss.

That is something you will never read in the advertising blurb!