Mobile Homes, Static Caravans and Holiday Parks Abroad: What You Are Actually Buying

Published on: August 23, 2026

Last verified: 23 August 2026. Mobile home, caravan and holiday park law differs by country, by region and, within the UK, between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it changes. Read your own agreement before committing funds.

Quick answer: In almost every jurisdiction you are buying a movable object and renting the ground beneath it. There is no deed, no land registry entry and no notary, because the unit is a chattel and the pitch is licensed to you under a contract that has an end date. In the UK, residential park homes on protected sites have statutory security of tenure, a regulated pitch fee review and a commission cap of 10 per cent, while holiday caravans have none of that: annually renewed licences, commission around 15 per cent plus VAT described as industry standard, age limits and a prohibition on living there. In Spain, siting a mobile home on rustic land is a planning question, and Spanish case law treats it as comparable to a prefabricated house requiring a licence rather than as a trailer.

There is a category of overseas property purchase that generates enormous search volume, has almost no serious editorial coverage, and produces a steady stream of people who discover the terms of the deal after they have signed it.

It goes by different names in different markets. Static caravan. Holiday lodge. Park home. Mobile home. Mobil-home. Casa móvil. Résidence mobile de loisirs. The marketing language across all of them is the language of property: buy your place in the sun, own your holiday home, an asset for the family.

The legal reality is different, and understanding it changes the decision entirely. In almost every jurisdiction, you are buying a movable object and renting the ground beneath it. You get a bill of sale for a manufactured unit, not a deed to land. You do not appear on the land register. Your right to keep the unit where it stands comes from a contract with the park operator, and that contract has an end date.

The structural facts that apply almost everywhere

You own a chattel, not land. The unit is personal property, like a vehicle or a boat. The pitch is licensed to you. This is why there is no notary, no land registry entry and no title deed
It depreciates. Manufactured units lose value with age in the way vehicles do, not the way houses do. Many parks additionally impose an age limit after which the unit must be removed or replaced. The combination means the exit value is usually well below the entry price, and sometimes close to nil, which is the opposite of how a house behaves
Your ongoing cost is not a service charge, it is rent for the ground. Site fees or pitch fees are the operator's principal recurring income, and they are reviewed annually
The operator controls the exit. Whether you can sell in situ, to whom, and at what commission, is set by the contract and by the operator's rules, not by an open market
Planning law, not property law, decides whether the unit can be there at all. This is the point that catches people who buy a mobile home to put on their own land in Spain, France or elsewhere. Owning the land does not mean you may put a dwelling on it

The United Kingdom: two completely different legal categories

Almost all UK confusion comes from conflating these. They are not variants of the same thing. They are separate regimes with different statutes and radically different rights.

Category A: residential park homes on protected sites

These are permanent homes on sites with residential planning permission. The occupier lives there year-round as their main residence. The framework is the Mobile Homes Act 1983, as amended by the Mobile Homes Act 2013 and the Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) Act 2023. There are roughly 85,000 households in this sector in England.

What that framework gives residents:

Security of tenure. The pitch agreement is generally open-ended. The site owner cannot simply decline to renew
Statutory implied terms that cannot be excluded from the agreement, covering termination, pitch fee changes and the process for selling or gifting the home
A regulated annual pitch fee review. The Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) Act 2023 changed the inflation index used for pitch fee reviews in England from RPI to CPI, bringing England into line with Wales. CPI has historically run below RPI, so the change reduces the annual uplift. A prescribed review form must be used and there is no permitted alternative method of calculating the inflation adjustment
The right to sell on the open market, with the site owner entitled to commission capped by regulation at 10 per cent of the sale price. The 10 per cent figure has been in place since 1983 and has been repeatedly debated. A government review of the maximum commission rate was launched in March 2026; as of mid-2026 no change to the cap had taken effect
Access to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for most disputes, including pitch fee challenges

Housing is devolved, so Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own versions of this framework with differences in detail, including how commission is set.

Category B: holiday caravans and lodges on holiday parks

This is a different world, and it is the category most people are actually buying into when they see a coastal park advertised.

No security of tenure. The agreement is a licence, typically renewed annually. Parks are generally clear in their own literature that annual renewal carries no guarantee for the following year
The park sets the commercial terms. Commission on a resale is contractual, not statutory. Rates around 15 per cent plus VAT are described within the industry as standard practice, materially above the 10 per cent statutory cap in the residential sector
Age limits. Many parks require the unit to be removed once it reaches a specified age. Some agreements set a minimum agreement length tied to the manufacture date, for example fifteen years from manufacture for a new unit and twelve for a used one, extendable by annual review
You cannot live there. Holiday parks operate under a site licence and planning conditions that limit the season and prohibit use as a sole or main residence. Parks enforce this, because their licence depends on it
Site fees are substantial. Published 2026 fees at large UK operators range from roughly £3,250 to £12,495 per year depending on park, pitch position and unit size, generally inclusive of VAT. Fees at smaller independent parks start lower
Fees are not the whole cost. Gas, electricity and water beyond standard allowances, insurance (often through the park's block policy, sometimes with an administration charge if you insure elsewhere), rates, decking, siting and connection charges, and winter drain-down all sit on top
Subletting is often restricted or prohibited, which removes the income assumption some buyers make

The commercial consequence. A £15,000 unit financed over seven years at a typical park finance rate can total close to £20,000 including credit charges, sitting on a pitch costing several thousand a year, on a licence that may not be renewed, in a unit that is worth less every year and must eventually be removed.

That is not an argument against buying one. Plenty of families get exactly what they want from it: a fixed base, no booking, no packing. It is an argument against buying one under the impression that it is property.

Spain: the mobile home on rustic land question

This is the most consequential misunderstanding in the Spanish market, and the answer is more restrictive than the marketing suggests.

The general rule. Spanish suelo rústico (rural, non-developable land) is protected precisely to prevent scattered residential development. Building homes on it is prohibited as a general rule, with narrow exceptions tied to agricultural, livestock or forestry activity.

The argument that it has wheels so it is not a building does not work. The Spanish Supreme Court has held that mobile homes require an urban planning licence because they are legally comparable to a prefabricated house rather than to a trailer, and that a camping or activity licence obtained previously does not authorise their siting, because such a licence controls nuisance to the surroundings rather than land use. That is the controlling logic, and it applies regardless of whether the unit sits on wheels or levellers.

In practice this means:

Regional variation is severe. Galicia's land law treats siting caravans or mobile homes on rustic land as a prohibited use, whether for permanent or temporary residence. Other communities permit it as an extraordinary use subject to a municipal planning licence and a technical project. Andalusian rules focus on regulated campsites, where permanent residence is prohibited and stays are capped
The determining factors are permanence and fixing. Concrete, foundations, permanent utility connections and continuous residential occupation all push a unit from movable object toward unauthorised building
Consequences are not theoretical. Fines, orders to remove the structure, invalid licences, inability to register the property, and in serious cases exposure under the criminal urbanism provisions of the Spanish penal code
You may not be able to register your residence there. Without empadronamiento at the address, practical administration becomes difficult
Utility connection is a separate legal problem. Informal connections to water or electricity create their own liabilities

Before buying land in Spain with a mobile home in mind, get written confirmation from the ayuntamiento about that specific parcel and that specific use. An agent's assurance, a neighbour's example, or a seller's existing unit is not confirmation. Our guide to hiring a real estate lawyer abroad covers how to instruct someone to do that check properly.

France: RML, HLL and where they may legally sit

France has a precise vocabulary for this category, and the categories carry different rules.

Résidence mobile de loisirs (RML), the mobil-home proper: retains its means of mobility and is intended for occasional leisure occupation
Habitation légère de loisirs (HLL): a light demountable leisure dwelling, chalet-type

Both are, as a general rule, permitted only within specific designated locations: registered campsites, parcs résidentiels de loisirs (PRL), villages de vacances and similar authorised sites. Siting one permanently on ordinary private land as a residence is not the intended use of the category, and French planning rules govern it, not property law. A unit that loses its mobility, or that is used as a principal residence, changes legal character.

As with Spain, the practical question is not whether you can buy it but where it may lawfully stand, and under whose licence. Check with the mairie and the local plan local d'urbanisme before purchase.

Other markets, briefly

Netherlands. Recreatiewoningen and chalet parks are widely used, and the persistent legal issue is permanente bewoning, permanent occupation of recreational property, which municipalities enforce with varying intensity. Enforcement policy varies by municipality and can change
Germany. Dauercamping on licensed campsites is well established, and the plot is leased under a contract with the site operator with no land title attaching
Italy. Units on licensed campsites and villaggi turistici, with siting governed by regional and municipal planning and tourism rules
Portugal, Croatia, Greece. Similar patterns: campsite and tourist-development frameworks rather than residential land use

Across all of them, the same three questions apply: what is the legal character of the unit, what is the legal character of the land it sits on, and what does the contract say about renewal and exit.

The questions to ask before you sign

About the agreement

Is this a residential pitch agreement or a holiday licence? Which statute, if any, applies?
How long is the agreement, and what are the renewal terms? What grounds allow the operator to decline renewal?
Is there an age limit on the unit, and what happens when it is reached?
Is the season restricted, and may the unit be occupied year-round?

About the money

What is the current pitch fee, what does it include, and what is the stated method for annual review?
What were the actual pitch fee increases over the last five years, in writing?
What are the charges for utilities, insurance, rates, siting, connection and disconnection?
Is there an administration charge if I insure the unit elsewhere?

About the exit

May I sell the unit in situ, or only back to the park?
What is the commission rate on a resale, and is VAT charged on it?
Is there an approved-buyer requirement?
If I leave mid-year, is any part of the pitch fee refunded? Is that a contractual right or a discretionary policy?
What are the disconnection and removal costs if the unit has to leave the pitch?

About the letting assumption and the operator

Is subletting permitted at all? If so, must it be through the park, and at what commission?
What are the tax and licensing consequences of letting in this jurisdiction?
Who owns the park, and has ownership changed recently? Terms frequently change after a sale
Is the operator a member of a trade association or bound by a code of practice?

Get every answer in writing before any deposit. Verbal assurances from a sales team are the single most common source of later dispute in this sector.

Finance, insurance and tax

Finance. Because the unit is a chattel, this is not a mortgage. It is asset finance, typically at higher rates than mortgage lending, often with a deposit around 10 per cent and terms of five to ten years. The security is the unit itself, which depreciates.

Insurance. Cover is for a manufactured unit, not a building, and policies have specific conditions around occupancy, winterisation and storm damage. Parks frequently offer block policies. Confirm what happens to cover if the unit is unoccupied for extended periods. Our overseas home insurance guide covers the claim-stage questions.

Tax. There is generally no property transfer tax, because there is no property transfer, but VAT applies to the unit purchase and often to fees and commission. Letting income is taxable wherever it arises. If you are non-resident and letting, the reporting obligations in DAC7 and rental income reporting for foreign owners may apply to platform bookings.

How this differs from a prefabricated or modular house

People often search for these categories together, and they are not the same thing.

A prefabricated or modular house is built off-site and assembled on a foundation on land you own. It is real property. It requires a building permit, it appears on the land register, it is mortgageable, it is taxed as property, and it appreciates or depreciates with the local housing market.

A mobile home or static caravan is not real property, sits on land you do not own, and is governed by a contract rather than a deed.

If your objective is an asset on land you control, you are looking for the first category. See our guide to prefab, modular and container homes.

Frequently asked questions

Do I own the land under my static caravan?
No. You own the unit. The land is licensed to you under the pitch agreement.

Can I live in a holiday caravan full time?
No. Holiday parks operate under site licences and planning conditions that prohibit use as a sole or main residence and typically restrict the season. Residential park homes on protected sites are the category that permits permanent living.

Will it hold its value?
Generally no. Manufactured units depreciate, and park age limits impose a hard end date on many of them. Treat the purchase as prepaid holidays with a residual value, not as an investment.

Why is the resale commission so high on holiday parks?
Because in the holiday sector it is contractual rather than capped by statute. The 10 per cent cap that applies to residential park homes in England does not apply to holiday caravan sales, where rates around 15 per cent plus VAT are described as industry standard.

Can I put a mobile home on land I own in Spain?
Not as a general rule on rustic land, and not on the assumption that mobility exempts it. Spanish case law treats mobile homes as requiring a planning licence, comparable to a prefabricated house. Rules differ by autonomous community and municipality, and some prohibit the use outright. Get written confirmation from the ayuntamiento for the specific parcel before buying anything.

Is any of this a scam?
No. These are legitimate, regulated products used happily by very large numbers of people. The problem is a mismatch between how they are marketed, in the language of property ownership, and what they are legally, which is a depreciating chattel on a renewable licence. Buy one knowing which of those you are getting.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

If the objective is a deed, a land registry entry and an asset that can appreciate, this category will not deliver it, and the alternative is a small freehold property rather than a larger unit on somebody else's pitch. JanusHermes lists property from local agencies in 11 languages, with the local agency's own contact details on every listing.

This article is general information published on 23 August 2026. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. Mobile home, caravan and holiday park law differs by country, by region and, within the UK, between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it changes. Read your own agreement and take advice from a qualified professional in the relevant jurisdiction before committing funds.