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What happens when your caravan licence expires?

When a holiday caravan pitch licence agreement ends you have no automatic right to stay. The park can require the caravan off the pitch, the de-siting has to be done by its contractors, and you pay. Here is the law and what real agreements say.

Published 2026-07-27 · updated 2026-07-27 · 10 min read · all figures sourced below

When your pitch licence agreement expires, you have no automatic legal right to keep the caravan where it is. The park can require you to take it off the pitch, the de-siting normally has to be carried out by the park's own contractors, and the bill is yours.

That catches people out because the word licence gets attached to three different things on a holiday park, only one of which is yours.

What is actually expiring, your licence or the park's?

Your pitch licence agreement is the contract between you and the park operator, and it is the one with an end date on it. It sets out how long the caravan may stay on that pitch and what happens when the term runs out.

The park's site licence is a different document, issued by the local authority under Part I of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. Section 4(1) of that Act ties its duration to planning permission: where permission was granted for a specified period, the site licence "shall expire, and shall be stated to expire, at the end of that period", but otherwise "a site licence shall not be issued for a limited period only". So the park's licence is usually open ended. Yours is not.

The third thing is the park's age policy on caravans, often called the 15 year rule. That is neither of the above, and it is not law.

Does the law give you a right to renew when your pitch licence ends?

No. The statutory security that residential park home owners have does not reach holiday caravan owners, and the exclusion is deliberate.

The Mobile Homes Act 1983 gives occupiers on a protected site the right to keep their home on the pitch. Section 5(1) of that Act takes the meaning of protected site from Part I of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. Section 1(2) of the 1968 Act then excludes any land where the relevant planning permission or site licence "is expressed to be granted for holiday use only", or is "subject to such conditions that there are times of the year when no caravan may be stationed on the land for human habitation".

Wales does the same thing in its own statute. Section 2 of the Mobile Homes (Wales) Act 2013 defines a regulated site as excluding a holiday site, and defines a holiday site as one where the planning permission or site licence "is expressed to be granted for holiday use only, or requires that there are times of the year when no mobile home may be stationed on the site for human habitation".

Two Acts, two jurisdictions, the same test. If your park is licensed for holiday use only, or closes for part of the year, you are outside both. Haven's own advice page says the licensing regime introduced by the Mobile Homes Act 2013 "does not extend to holiday homes".

What you do have is the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which Business Companion confirms governs holiday park pitch agreements. Section 62(1) says an unfair term of a consumer contract is not binding on the consumer, and section 62(4) defines unfair as a term that, "contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer". That can strike down a badly drafted clause. It does not manufacture a right to renew that the contract never gave you. The same gap runs through why site fees keep rising and what rights you actually have.

How long is a holiday caravan pitch licence?

Ten to twenty years is the normal range, and operators publish different numbers.

Haven states on its 2026 advice page that the initial licence period for occupation of a pitch on its parks is 12 years. Park Holidays UK advertises longer terms, telling buyers on its 2026 reasons to buy page that "you can enjoy up to 20 years for caravans and up to 40 years for lodges". Garreg Goch Park in Porthmadog publishes that "the minimum number of years allowed on an agreement is fifteen years from the date of manufacture for a new Holiday Home and twelve years for a used model", with each licence then "extended by an annual review". Home Farm Holiday Park at Burnham on Sea publishes that "all new caravans are sold with a basic 12 year pitch agreement". Willerby, a manufacturer rather than a park, says the pitch licence "tends to last between ten and twenty years".

Sources disagree, and one disagrees with itself. The same Haven page that gives the 12 year initial licence period also tells readers they can keep a static caravan on Haven sites "for as long as you want". Only the first describes a contractual term, and only the first is the thing you sign.

Willerby says one of its caravans "can continue to be your home-away-from-home for thirty years or more". A 12 year agreement on a 30 year product means the paperwork, not the caravan, decides when ownership ends. That gap is one reason the depreciation numbers in the true cost of owning a holiday lodge look the way they do.

Is the 15 year rule a real law?

No. No statute sets a maximum age for a holiday caravan on a licensed park. It is a contractual policy that varies. Parklink, a static caravan sales site, describes it as "a common park policy" and notes that "not all parks use the 15 Year Rule, some have a 10 Year Rule or a 20 Year Rule, while others judge units purely on condition".

The conditions attached to an extension are where the detail hides. Home Farm publishes a sample pitch licence agreement on its own website. It runs the pitch agreement for a minimum of twelve years, and lifts the age restriction after that only on conditions, including that "the caravan may remain on the pitch as long as it remains in good condition and does not look detrimental to the look of the park" and that "the unlimited time span will apply only if the caravan remains in the ownership of the original purchaser/s".

Read that second condition carefully: the extension is personal. The same document states that "should the original purchaser of the caravan decide to sell the pitch agreement reverts to the original balance of the twelve year agreement". A buyer of that caravan on the pitch in year eleven inherits one year, however it was advertised.

What happens on the day the agreement ends?

The caravan has to come off the pitch, on a timetable set by the contract, using contractors the park chooses.

Home Farm's published sample agreement is specific. Clause 13.1 says "you will arrange with us for the removal of the Caravan and all other property of yours from the Park within one month after termination of this Licence Agreement however that comes about". Clause 4.11 requires that any work in de-siting or removing the caravan "must be done by us or by our contractors", and that "you agree to pay us for removing the Caravan from the Park".

Clause 13.2 covers what happens if you do nothing. The park may remove the caravan itself "after giving you not less than 14 days notice in writing", and then this: "if the Independent Surveyor confirms to us that the Caravan is not capable of selling for a sum sufficient to cover the costs of removal and sale, then you authorise us to dispose of the Caravan as we see fit and you will repay to us the costs we incur (acting reasonably) in removal and disposal of the Caravan".

That is the sentence to read twice. A caravan at the end of a twelve year term can be worth less than the cost of taking it away and selling it, and the agreement then sends you the bill for scrapping your own holiday home.

One more clause contradicts the assumption most buyers make. Under the heading right to replace caravan, it says "your right to replace the Caravan under this agreement on the pitch is limited to replacement only following destruction by fire, natural disaster or other similar occurrence". Putting a newer caravan on the same pitch when the old term ends is something the park may agree to. It is not a right the agreement gives you.

What does it cost to take the caravan off the park?

Home Farm is one of the few parks that publishes the figure. On its 2026 cost of ownership page it lists "removal cost from the pitch to leave park: £500" and "removal of sundeck and discarding: £450". That is £950 to end a twelve year agreement with an empty pitch, before any transport to somewhere else.

Most operators do not publish it. Tingdene Holiday Parks' 2026 guide to moving a static caravan gives no figures and says only that it will quote on your location and distance. Home Farm was the only operator page checked here that carried a number.

Ask for the de-siting and disconnection charge as a written number before you sign, not on the day you leave.

What are your options when the licence period ends?

Haven lists four on its 2026 advice page: "renew the licence, buy a new caravan on the same site, go to the part-exchange, or move your property to another site". None of the four is free, and two of them are at the park's discretion rather than yours.

Renewal is the obvious one and the least secure. The National Association of Caravan Owners warns that "a license of short duration gives the caravan owner little security, and when it comes up for renewal the park owner may offer to renew it on less favourable terms". Nothing obliges the park to renew at all.

Buying new on the same pitch restarts the clock and costs the most. Home Farm's 2026 commissioning package, covering factory transport, siting, service connections and gas commissioning, is £4,950 for a 12ft wide caravan and £5,950 for a 13ft or 14ft wide, on top of the caravan itself. The ownership cost calculator will show what that does to the total over a full term.

Selling on the pitch hands a slice to the park. Home Farm's sample agreement sets the rate at "maximum 15% of resale price achieved plus VAT", and defines commission as "the payment you must make to us if you sell the Caravan on the pitch and we issue a fresh agreement to the new owner".

Moving to another park is where the age policy bites. Haven's relocation offer requires the holiday home to be "no more than 15 years old from the date of manufacture", which excludes many caravans reaching the end of a twelve to fifteen year term. The receiving park sets its own limit, and you pay the transport.

What should you check before you sign?

The end date, written as a date, in Part I of the agreement. Not "around fifteen years" said by a salesperson on a park visit.

Then four more. Whether any extension is automatic, discretionary or conditional, and whether it survives a sale. The de-siting and disconnection charge, as a figure. The commission rate on a resale, and whether VAT sits on top. Whether the agreement gives you any right to put a replacement caravan on the pitch.

Business Companion's guidance for park operators, published with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and the Department for Business and Trade, says an agreement "must be clear about length of tenure" and "must be clear about what follows termination, which will include moving the holiday caravan / lodge away from its pitch, moving it off your holiday park and the costs of doing this". A park that will not answer those questions in writing is worth walking away from before the deposit, rather than arguing with in year twelve.

Sources