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Holiday lodge finance explained: what the monthly payment really costs

Park finance for a lodge or static caravan runs at 8.9% to 10.9% APR representative in 2026. Here is what the operators' own worked examples add up to, why the APR is nearly double the quoted interest rate, and which consumer credit protections do not apply.

Published 2026-07-28 · updated 2026-07-28 · 10 min read · all figures sourced below

Holiday lodge and static caravan finance is a fixed rate credit agreement arranged by the park, which acts as a credit broker rather than the lender. In 2026 the published rates run from 8.9% APR representative at Park Holidays to 10.9% APR representative at Hoburne, over terms of up to ten years, and on Haven's own worked example a £30,000 caravan costs £41,193 by the end of the term.

That £11,193 gap is the number the monthly payment hides. Below are the figures each operator publishes, checked against their own arithmetic, plus the parts of consumer credit law that do and do not apply when the thing you are financing is a caravan.

What does holiday lodge finance actually cost in 2026?

Every one of these figures comes from the operator's own finance page, read on 28 July 2026.

Operator Representative APR Quoted interest rate Term
Park Holidays UK 8.9% 4.75% fixed 84 months in the example
Haven 9.6% 5.33% fixed 120 months
Away Resorts 9.9% 5.31% (84 months), 5.51% (120 months) 84 or 120 months
Hoburne 10.9% not published 24 months to 10 years
Shorefield Holidays not published not published can exceed 10 years

Shorefield publishes no APR at all. Its ownership finance page says only that the rate is fixed once agreed and that "our APR can vary depending on the rates offered at the time of purchase". It also asks for a minimum deposit of 20% of the total sales value, double the 10% minimum quoted by Haven, Park Holidays and Away Resorts. Hoburne publishes a headline 10.9% APR representative but no worked example, so there is no way to check what a real agreement costs.

For context, the Bank of England set Bank Rate at 3.75% on 18 June 2026. Park finance in 2026 sits roughly five to seven percentage points above it.

Haven names Santander as the lender and Hoburne names Santander through its finance partners. Neither page says whether the agreement is hire purchase, conditional sale or a fixed sum loan. That distinction decides whether you can hand the caravan back, and it is covered further down.

Why is the APR nearly double the interest rate?

Because the quoted interest rate is charged on the whole original balance for the whole term, while the APR reflects the balance you actually still owe. Haven's example is the clearest illustration, because its numbers reconcile exactly.

Haven publishes a £30,000 cash price, a 30% deposit, 120 monthly payments of £268, a 5.33% fixed interest rate, a 9.6% APR representative and a total amount payable of £41,193. The deposit leaves £21,000 borrowed. Multiply £21,000 by 5.33%, then by ten years, and you get £11,193.00. That is the total charge for credit to the penny.

So the 5.33% is applied to the full £21,000 in year ten, when you have repaid most of it. By the end of the agreement you owe almost nothing and are still paying interest as though you owed the lot. The APR is the honest comparison figure, and it is 9.6%.

The Consumer Credit (Total Charge for Credit) Regulations 2010 set how that APR is worked out, on the assumption at regulation 6 "that the consumer credit agreement is to remain valid for the period agreed and that the creditor and the debtor will fulfil their obligations". Compare APRs between parks. Ignore the fixed rate, which is not comparable to a mortgage rate or a savings rate and is not meant to be.

One operator's example does not reconcile. Park Holidays publishes a cash price of £19,995, a £3,500 deposit, a £16,495 balance, 84 payments of £264.55, a 4.75% fixed rate, an 8.9% APR representative and a total amount payable of £25,722.45. The payments and the deposit add up to the published total, so those are right. But £16,495 at a 4.75% flat rate over seven years is £5,484.59 of interest, and the example actually charges £5,727.45. The £242.86 difference is not explained on the page, and no fee is listed. Run the APR calculation on the published payments and it comes out at about 9.3%, not 8.9%. Ask Park Holidays to itemise the difference before you sign anything.

The term matters more than most buyers expect. Away Resorts publishes two versions of the same £29,995 purchase: 84 payments of £408.23 giving a total payable of £39,291.09, and 120 payments of £323.12 giving a total payable of £43,774.23. Dropping the monthly payment by £85.11 costs £4,483.14 in extra interest.

Is holiday lodge finance regulated by the FCA?

Yes, in the sense that the park introducing you to the lender must be authorised. Haven's page states that Bourne Leisure Ltd is authorised and regulated by the FCA as a credit broker, with Haven Leisure Ltd as an appointed representative. Away Resorts says companies within its group are authorised for consumer credit broking and that it acts "as a credit broker, not as a lender". Hoburne lists six group companies authorised as secondary credit brokers. Shorefield quotes FCA number 688069.

Park Holidays goes further than the others on commission. Its finance page says it can introduce you to a limited number of lenders "and we do not receive a commission or other benefits for doing so". No other operator page read for this article makes that statement either way. If commission is not mentioned, ask.

Being FCA regulated does not mean the finance is cheap or that the park is neutral about which lender you use. A limited panel is a limited panel. Get a quote from your own bank or a specialist lender before you accept the park's offer. Sure Leisure Finance, an FCA authorised broker specialising in leisure homes, advertises rates from 6.5% APR and publishes a representative example of £10,000 over 120 payments of £122.71 at a 5.14% variable annual interest rate, a total of £14,725.20 including a £495 lender fee and a £1,000 broker fee, at 8.6% APRC. Those are secured loans against a homeowner's equity, which is a different risk to you, and the £1,495 of fees is why the APRC is well above the headline rate. Read the fee line on any quote.

Does Section 75 protect you if the lodge is misdescribed?

Almost certainly not, because of a cash price cap written into the law in 1983. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the lender jointly liable with the supplier for misrepresentation or breach of contract, which is the protection people assume covers a financed purchase.

Section 75(3)(b) removes that protection for "any single item to which the supplier has attached a cash price not exceeding £100 or more than £30,000". Those limits were substituted by SI 1983/1878 and still stand in the current text of the Act. A £64,995 lodge is one item with one cash price, so it is outside Section 75 entirely. Haven's £30,000 example sits exactly on the line.

This is the single most useful thing to know before financing a lodge. If the park misdescribes the pitch, the licence length or the resale terms, you are pursuing the park, not the lender.

Can you hand the lodge back and walk away?

Only if the agreement is hire purchase or conditional sale, and the park pages read for this article do not say which type they use. Section 99 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 gives a right of termination under "a regulated hire-purchase or regulated conditional sale agreement" and nothing else. Section 100 then caps what you owe at "the amount (if any) by which one-half of the total price exceeds the aggregate of the sums paid and the sums due in respect of the total price immediately before the termination", which is the well known right to hand goods back once you have paid half.

A fixed sum loan carries no such right. You owe the balance whether or not you still have the caravan. Shorefield's page describes its finance as being "much like when you purchase a new car or vehicle", which does not settle the question either way, since car finance includes both hire purchase and personal loans.

Ask for the agreement type in writing before you pay a deposit. If it is a fixed sum loan, a ten year term on an asset that loses value is a decision you cannot reverse cheaply. Shorefield says plainly on its own page that on an early sale it "would be very unlikely that you would achieve the price paid initially, similar to that when purchasing a new car". That is an operator telling you the resale value will not clear the debt in the early years.

What does it cost to settle the finance early?

Less than the remaining payments, but more than the outstanding balance. Section 94 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 gives you the right to discharge the debt early on any regulated agreement, less the rebate allowable under section 95.

The rebate is calculated under the Consumer Credit (Early Settlement) Regulations 2004. Where credit is repayable over more than a year, regulation 6 lets the creditor defer the settlement date by "(a) one month, or (b) where the length of a month's deferment would be more or less than 30 days and the creditor so elects, 30 days". In practice you pay about an extra month of interest for the privilege of settling. That is lawful and standard. Ask for a settlement figure in writing rather than assuming it equals the balance on your statement.

What the monthly payment does not include

Operators differ on what the financed price covers, which makes cross-park comparison harder than it should be.

Haven's finance page says the price "excludes 2026 site fees, running costs and add-ons requested at point of sale". Park Holidays says its example includes "siting, connection, and this seasons pitch fees". So two published examples that look comparable are not.

Whatever the first year covers, the site fee arrives every year afterwards and the finance payment sits on top of it. On the Park Holidays example that is £264.55 a month, roughly £3,175 a year, before a single pitch fee, insurance premium or gas bill. Site fees on the parks we have costed run from about £3,250 to well over £10,000 a year, and they rise annually. We have set out how those increases work and what rights you have in why site fees keep rising, and the full running cost picture in the true cost of owning a holiday lodge.

Put both numbers into the ownership cost calculator together. A finance payment modelled without the site fee is not a budget.

What to ask before you sign

Ask for the APR, not the fixed rate, and ask for it on the specific deal you are being offered. A representative APR is an advertising figure, not a quote, and the rate you are offered can be higher.

Ask whether the agreement is hire purchase, conditional sale or a fixed sum loan, and get the answer in writing.

Ask what the total amount payable is, then subtract the cash price yourself. That difference is what the credit costs.

Ask whether the quoted price includes siting, connection and the first year's pitch fee, because Haven and Park Holidays answer that question differently.

Ask whether the park receives commission from the lender. Park Holidays states in writing that it does not. Nobody else read for this article says either way.

Ask for a written settlement figure at year three and year five, and compare it with what the park says the caravan would be worth then. If the second number is smaller than the first, you are buying negative equity on purpose.

Sources