Jump to content

France Spain


Guest starspirit

Recommended Posts

Guest starspirit

Does anyone have any experience of mobile home purchase in France or Spain please?

 

What are the pitfalls and things to watch out for - apart from excessive site fees.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest starspirit

Not me Mel - just wondering whether a semi permanent base for winter hibernation and easier Euro touring is worthy of a thought or three?

 

Judging by the ominous silence it seems that Park Home owners are not as adventurous and/or vociferous as our lot?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rich - perhaps they've heard of you already and are frightened you might buy one near them and bring Howie and Forrester as well!!!! (lol)

 

Must agree though, I had the same thought about a possible touring base. It would appear to save a lot of the hassle with having a permanent base over there what will all the upkeep etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest starspirit

Preliminary enquiries suggest that a s/h smallish van will be upwards of £10k and a new one upwards of £15k with between £2k to £3k a year in site costs as well as being a depreciating asset.

 

At that level I'm not so sure that the volume of use is justifiable and we might prefer a small apartment somewhere in rural France? Dunno yet?

 

Anyway we have a three day 'freebie' introductory visit booked next week on a Siblu site near Montpelier and I could report back if anyone is interested?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

buy yourself a gite or an apartment,mortgage wont be much more than 3-4k a year, rent it out for some of the year to pay the mortgage, value is likely to go up, not down like the van. there are some tax pitfalls (france) that you will have to look at though. i have no experience of buying, just enquired a few years back.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest starspirit

Thanks Mark - don't need a mortgage so it's just a case of working out whether the total buying, selling and running costs plus loss of interest added to the depreciation in the case of a caravan or offset against possible appreciation in the case of bricks and mortar justifies the potential use?

Rental income also comes with rental aggravation and sometimes unfair wear and tear and it is nice just to have your own place without the 'input' of others.

We could just get a bigger van more suitable for longer term living of course?

Or a smaller van to journey to and from in?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a bigger van is what i'm hoping to get when i retire! travel around europe 9 months of the year and back in the uk for 3 months, although i suppose my 7 mtr van is not on the small side, only problem is, i wont have this van in 25 yrs time when i do retire!! long term plans eh!. I would agree that rental can be a headache but, you will have control of who rents your property, if you rented to say the older( sorry, more experienced) people they would almost definately look after it for you, somewhere for walkers in the summer and skiers in the winter, if you are retired you could pick the less busy times to use it yourself and rent it out at the most expensive times, summer hols, ski hols £500 a week. I think i have just talked myself into looking at this possibility!! (^) she'll kill me 8-)

take care

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I bought a s/h static in the Vendee last October and have not regretted it. You can get a decent one from £8000 upwards but obviosly if you want something newer you will pay more. Site fees are around £1200 or more depending on size of pitch.

On the site I am on, several people have motorcaravans and some like myself live there most of the year. English is spoken predominently on the site, although it is French owned.

On the whole, it is the best of both worlds and you save a lot not having to go all the way back to the UK every trip. It can also be easier to fly back to the UK and leave the M. home with the static. The campsite is a lot safer than where I live in England. That's another story.

 

Clive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

We've a new 3 bed static, with a terrace in Normandy on a siblu site. Cost was €25,000 and ground rent is around €2600 a year.

 

Benefits over a gite: Englis spoken here. Nuff said!!!! But the site closes over winter. Allthough the local marie and site are trying to work a deal of some sorts. I'd have thought Normandy would be too far North to offer some of the benefits you want...

 

Super secure site though.

 

Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Tracker

Cheers Barry, our Siblu experience of La Carabasse was awful and we only stayed two of the three free 'taster' days booked.

Vans were expensive - up to £40k new and from £25k used with ridiculous site fees of circa £2000 a year for a site that only opened April to September. The site was old and tacky and it was like Skegness on Med and whilst I can see the attraction for kids, it's not for us and especially not for us at their prices.

We also looked at Le Lac du Reve and that was a little newer and a bit better - except for the mosquito infested brackish lake!

I sincerely hope that your Normandy site is in a different league but meanwhile we will stick with our apartment in Murcia as our continental base and carry on letting it for the summer if only so we can use it in the winter - well that's the plan anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mel B - 2007-04-13 5:24 PM

 

Rich - perhaps they've heard of you already and are frightened you might buy one near them and bring Howie and Forrester as well!!!! (lol)

 

Comments duly noted Melanie, and back to Richard,s original question which deserves more respect if you don,t mind.

As is always the case with you Richard the main sticking point seems to be cost. Only a suggestion of course, but if this proposed 'temporary/holiday' home could be changed to 'permanent residence', then along with most others on this forum I would be more than willing to make a small contribution to help achieve your dream.

:-> Take note of that smilie old timer, makes all the difference don,t it. ;-)

 

Don,t see the point of this myself. If you have a motorhome then why the need for a base, where given a year or two you,ve seen all there is to see and start feeling the need to explore other areas which puts you back to square one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

Hello , another year passes by and we are still on Camping Almafra Benidorm and yet again a new supposed company have turned up to run the site and again the rent issue crops up !.

so we find ourselves having to take on the campsite and continuing with the lies and deceit, and again the contract, is it legal is it not well if its not legal we have be duped into signing it so it looks like court action .

well the moral of this post is DON'T think about coming here if retirement or relaxing is what you intend.

We have been on this hell hole for 5 years now and its the same every year blood pressure running through the roof disputes over the contract and the rent for the plot .

You may ask why have we stayed simple we spent €68,000 on a mobile home (nothing really mobile about it) and prob a further €15,000 on decking sun blinds etc , we have bought a villa and is in the later stages of being reformed so hopefully we will get off this jail but hey should we wipe our mouth for around €83,000 no so why don't we move it like some of the lucky one's who have gone, because we bought a double sized unit and can't find somewhere to locate it.

Buy on a Spanish campsite people said please take my advice and don't even think of turning up here.

Since opening with around 300 plots there where about 45 mobile homes (similar to park homes) at first they went like hot cakes well around 12 have relocated and no new ones turned up speaks for it self this is probably the least occupied campsite in this region 5 stars don't make me laugh supermarket NO, Doctors NO, cash point NO, Hairdressers NO, street lighting well half may be on until 12 ish then its a total black out not even on the walkways this is just skimming the surface of the problems on Almafra camping but asking around €5,700 for a piece of dirt bearing in mind the electricity is nearly 3 times the normal charge from Iberdrola and we have all are own utils so we don't using the camping facilities showers toilets etc, yes people may say this is normal for campsites but we are residents not 1 week here we live and work from here, there is new law in the uk to stop this type of extortionate behavior in the UK lets hope it becomes Eu law . i will keep you posted if things change but we don't hold our breath i feel sorry for the elderly who are scared to speak out in fear of the threat of eviction having sold everything and spent there last money on the mobile home and just scrapping by on there pension to pay the high rent , it would have been far cheaper keeping hold of our money and renting a villa or apartment than pouring it into a mobile home and paying for this piece of ground i'm sure the campsite forget we own the homes and apart from the pool we don't use any services from them and then the pool or is it a toilet that's another story ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...