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dear dave having been an owner at coombe haven for 3years we decided we liked the area so much we would like to move there so we rented our house out and decided to stay in our van after 1 year living on park , i know were not allowed to do that but lots of people do and all the staff and gm knew , so in october 2006 we sold our house and upgraded our van all the staff knew we were doing this ,so you can imagine our shock when we recieved a letter in jan 2007asking for proof of address and council tax details so we arranged a meeting with the general manager and someone from head office and told them that we live there and all of a sudden all the staff had amnesia so we were told we had to leavepark and sell our van back to them we had £40.000 in finance and gave them 23.000 from the sale of our house they gave us back£2.700 no that is not a spelling mistake £2.700 and the opportunity for the first time in our married lives to be homeless WHY and how do bl get away this

the sales team are still selling caravans telling people they can live there but they cannot recieve post please can you send me details of any solicitors who you think might help

sorry for being a pain but do you have the md's name and address as i want to take marton mere to court.

thank you for any help

Glad I found your website as you get some interesting info and can swap helpful tips. My partner and I bought a 2003 silver standard 2 bed van at Devon Cliffs last October and have been there a couple of times this year so far. We have rented it out under the guaranteed letting scheme with Haven and will be going for the Executive Partnership letting service next year. We have given them extra dates to let but won’t know until the end of October exactly how much we have made, hopefully enough for next years site fees and to put towards other expenses. It would have been helpful to have a list of expected costs when we bought ours but they do have such a list now. It will probably cost you getting on for £6000 a year to run a van on Devon Cliffs. It is easy to get romanced into buying a van, especially when they have such luxurious ones on show but it is more of a long term thing than just buying a van for a year or so. Our salesman was honest enough to tell us that it wasn’t an investment as the value would go down and we wouldn’t make an income out of it, probably just break even. If you are going to buy a van here set yourself a plan and a budget and stick to it, get as many Owners specials and just get what you want out of it. We live in Kent so it is a 5 hour drive but we bought it for our family holidays as our son is 5 and we need to go in the most expensive school holiday periods. So far we are happy with the site and the staff although everyone in the Owners part is constantly trying to get you to upgrade which seems to be a slippery slope to more and more finance and tying yourself to Bourne Leisure for many years. In the past we have only had a weeks holiday in a caravan on various sites around the country but have so far had a week at Easter, 2 weeks in August and will be having long weekends in October and November so we are getting more holidays than we would normally and as long as the van pays for itself we are happy. In about 5 years time we will probably just sell up and take whatever we can get for it, although from what I’ve read on your website it won’t be much. Hope some of my ramblings are helpful.

I am a solicitor acting for a couple who bought a caravan from BL at Thorpe Park, Cleethorpes. I am trying to assist them as best I can to turn around the unfortunate position in which they now find themselves. Do you know of any other solicitors who are acting for BL caravan owners and whom I could contact for a chat? Do you have a contact name at BL, as high up as possible, to whom I could write?
Any help would be gratefully received.

Hi Dave,

It is now some months since I last contacted you and have since been an avid follower of your website.

I have finally convinced my wife to sell our caravan at Seashore. It is a Willerby Aspen 2003 model with 3 bedrooms. We paid £37,000 for it in July 2005. Today we were offered £10,500 by BL at Seashore.

Would welcome any advice you can offer before we decide what to do.

Best Regards.......

Just had Seashore on the phone. They didn't want to buy themselves but had some Traders on site and we were offered £12,000. This appears to be the current price according to their 'Glasse's guidebook' All said that the price will go down in November. As for a private sale, BL want 15% and then a buyer would have to pay the full price for the pitch fee - just under £4,000 pa and this puts buyers off.

So we took the hit. We had some enjoyable visits but many were spoilt by the type of people coming on their £9.50 holidays as advertised in the tabloids (If you know what I mean)

I will tune into the Yorks programme on the 17th.

hello i was thinking of buying a van at craig tara but i was looking for a private sale .after reading some stories i dont know if this is advisable is there anyone who could advise or recommend or know of any vas going private ive never owned a caravan so i am a bit wary ,thanks e