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How do you challenge a holiday park site fee increase?

The step by step route for objecting to a site fee rise, the deadlines that apply, and the reason the industry's own free dispute service will not look at the amount you are charged.

Published 2026-08-08 · updated 2026-08-08 · 10 min read · all figures sourced below

You challenge a site fee increase by objecting in writing to the park before the date on the increase notice, then running the park's own complaints procedure to a written final decision, then going to the county court. There is one thing that route will not get you: the free dispute service the industry points owners towards refuses complaints about the amount of a site fee.

That refusal is written down, so knowing it before you start saves you three months.

Your licence agreement calls it a pitch fee. Brochures call it a site fee. Same charge, and this article says site fee except inside quotations.

What is the deadline for objecting to a site fee increase?

The deadline is the date printed on the increase notice, and your licence agreement sets it. Miss it and you have not objected, whatever you said on the phone.

The National Caravan Council publishes a standard for how much warning you should get. Its Best Practice Guidance for Holiday Parks with Holiday Caravans/Holiday Lodges in Private Ownership, third edition dated February 2025, says the park "will provide you with at least 45 calendar days written notification and explanation of a proposed change in pitch fees". It says site fees normally "will change in line with inflation" and to cover park improvements, operating costs or changes in the law, and defines inflation as RPI.

Two limits on that. The guidance applies to agreements "entered into on or after 1 May 2023", so an older agreement may not be covered. And it is a trade body standard, not law. Nobody is fined for ignoring it.

Two further deadlines are shorter than people expect, and both come from the NCC's own dispute service rules. You must have raised the complaint with the park "within 28 days of you becoming aware of the problem". Once the park issues its written final decision, the service "will reject any complaint brought to us more than three calendar months after the date of the company's written final decision, unless we agree that there are special circumstances".

The park's side of the best practice standard: acknowledge your complaint in writing within seven days, final decision within 28 days.

What must your park's fee increase clause actually contain?

Business Companion, the guidance service run by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute with the Department for Business and Trade, sets out what a lawful fee variation term has to do. It is the strongest document you have, because it tells operators the standard and you can quote it back.

Before the contract is signed, the park must "set out in detail how any changes will take place, the reasons for the changes and the method for calculating the increase / cost". On indexation, "fairness is more likely to be achieved if you use an external index to set the new price", naming CPI. The terms should also "describe the process whereby the owner can challenge you regarding a pitch fee increase", including "how an owner can take their complaint to court if you do not agree". Owners who reject the new fee "may terminate their contract without being worse off", and that exit right must be "capable of being exercised in practice without loss or serious inconvenience".

Behind that sits the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Part 1 of Schedule 2 lists terms that may be unfair, including at paragraph 14 a term giving the trader "the discretion to decide the price payable under the contract after the consumer has become bound by it". Paragraph 25 of Part 2 then carves out price indexation clauses "if the method by which prices vary is explicitly described".

So a clause that names an index and shows the sum is close to unattackable. A clause that just says the park may review fees annually is the one worth arguing about.

Section 64 is why. A price term escapes the fairness test only if it is transparent, meaning "expressed in plain and intelligible language and (in the case of a written term) is legible", and prominent, meaning "brought to the consumer's attention in such a way that an average consumer would be aware of the term". Fail either test and the exemption goes.

Look at what operators publish. Haven's site fees page, accessed on 8 August 2026, says site fees "are payable annually before the start of each season and are subject to annual review and change". No index. No notice period. No stated review process. That falls short of what Business Companion describes.

The same page is a lesson in checking figures. One table gives annual site fees "from £4,770 to £10,000+", footnoted as "based on costs at Golden Sands, Lincolnshire in January 2026". An FAQ says fees "start from £4,645 per year", and a third panel says "From £4,395 per annum". Three different starting figures, one page, one day. Screenshot your park's numbers with the date on them.

Does objecting alone achieve anything, or do you need the whole park?

Alone, usually not much beyond building a record. The NCC guidance sets a collective trigger, not an individual one.

Its wording: if "33% of holiday caravan/holiday lodge owners on the park write to object stating clear and specific objections to the change by the specified date", the park will assess the objections and "not impose any increase in the pitch fee until the dispute has been considered and a decision given in writing with clear reasons for the decision". One third of an entire park, in writing, by the deadline. That bar is high, and it explains why individual objections often go nowhere.

The National Association of Caravan Owners, the owners' side body, agrees. Its pitch fee guidance, dated 6 December 2024, says "most contracts ask that you object the increase in writing" and describes a majority vote as the way to tackle the issue. NACO membership is £36 a year on its published price.

Object in writing anyway, and find out whether anyone else on your park is doing the same.

Will the industry's free dispute service look at your site fee?

No. The NCC Informal Dispute Resolution Service excludes site fee amounts by name.

Its 2024 complaints guidance lists, under exclusions for holiday parks, "a complaint about the amount of, or changes to, pitch fees or other charges levied by the park operator when operating in compliance with the terms of the Licence Agreement". It also excludes complaints about commercial decisions such as buy back values or entertainment pass prices.

The NCC's best practice guidance says the same from the other direction. Its complaint handling standard "does not cover complaints about the level of pitch fees and/or whether they have been increased using the agreed criteria laid out in section 5.2 (a) of this guidance".

What is left in scope is process. If the park did not follow the procedure in your licence agreement, that is arguable. If it followed its procedure and the number is simply large, the scheme is closed to you. The service also says it does not "formally mediate, arbitrate or make a judgement on the issues presented".

Three more exclusions catch people out. It will not take a complaint where "either party has instructed a legal advisor or where qualified legal advice has been sought". It will not take group actions, meaning a complaint "submitted by multiple customers of one business regarding the same subject matter", which sits awkwardly beside the 33% objection rule above. And it will not take a matter already heading for the small claims court.

If it does accept your complaint, it aims to conclude within 90 calendar days. Escalation to the Independent Case Examiner costs £50 plus VAT, refunded in full "if the decision of the ICE is wholly or partly in your favour".

What your park must not do while you are challenging

Business Companion is explicit on two points. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, a park "must not harass owners who are challenging pitch fee rises". It also "must not make it difficult for an owner to challenge an increase in court by insisting that they engage in ADR first".

On pressure, it says aggressive practices could include "threats to terminate an owner's pitch licence agreement if they question charges levied against them or continue to pursue a complaint against you". If your park has hinted that your licence is at risk because you complained, that sentence belongs in your letter.

At deadlock the park must tell you it cannot settle the complaint and give you details of any ADR arrangement, but only, in its words, "if one is available".

Can you take a site fee increase to court?

Yes, through an ordinary county court money claim in England and Wales, and the fees are modest at small claims level.

The scale published by HM Courts and Tribunals Service on GOV.UK runs £35 for a claim up to £300, £70 for £500.01 to £1,000, £115 for £1,500.01 to £3,000, £205 for £3,000.01 to £5,000, and £455 for £5,000.01 to £10,000. Hearing and enforcement fees can come later. A disputed annual increase is usually a few hundred pounds, so most of these claims sit near the bottom of that table.

The time limit is six years. Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 says an action founded on simple contract "shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued". Scotland has a separate court system and its own time limits, which this article has not checked.

One point of law is worth stating plainly, because published sources disagree. Business Companion says the DMCCA 2024 "replaces the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs), but it is not yet completely in force. For the time being, consumers' rights of redress are still covered by the CPRs." The revised text of the 2008 Regulations on legislation.gov.uk still carries Part 4A, the rights to redress provisions, with no revocation applied, and Schedule 18 of the DMCCA lists those Regulations as an enactment enforceable under the Act rather than revoking them. The private right to unwind a contract induced by a misleading or aggressive practice therefore appears to still run through the 2008 Regulations. Take advice on which instrument applies to your facts.

What to put in the letter

Keep it short and dated. Email is fine and leaves a timestamp.

  1. The pitch, the park, your agreement date, and the old and new site fee in pounds.
  2. A sentence stating that you object to the increase.
  3. The clause number in your agreement that governs fee changes, quoted.
  4. A question asking how the increase was calculated, and against which index.
  5. A request for the site fee charged on your pitch for each of the last five years.
  6. A request for the park's written complaints procedure.

Send it before the objection deadline on the notice and keep a copy. If the park is an NCC member, its final written decision starts your three month escalation clock.

If you get nowhere, Citizens Advice runs the consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, with a Welsh language line on 0808 223 1144. It can "pass information about complaints on to Trading Standards (you can't do this yourself)", but its advisers "can't make a complaint for you or take legal action on your behalf".

Before deciding whether the fight is worth it, put the new figure and a few years of increases through our ownership cost calculator. Why these fees keep climbing, and how little statutory protection holiday home owners have, is in why holiday park site fees keep rising. What the fee is supposed to buy is in what a site fee actually pays for.

The single most useful thing you can do costs nothing and takes ten minutes: find the fee variation clause in your own agreement and read it. Most owners have never seen it.

Sources