Your guide to buying a caravan holiday home

Selecting the right pitch location

Once you have chosen both your caravan park and the ideal caravan to suit your needs, one of the final stages before you complete your purchase is to choose a pitch to site your caravan on. Remember, your caravan is most likely to be your holiday home for hopefully many years, so it is important that the pitch you choose meets both your short and longer term plans.

What pitches are available?

Each caravan park will differ on the number of pitches it has available for new owners and on their policy of allocation.

Many parks will offer you a selection of the pitches available and then it is up to yourself to choose the pitch which best suits your needs.

When considering which pitch to choose, a few of the points you may wish to consider include:

Does the pitch have its own personal parking space by the caravan? If not, is there sufficient available parking close by?
How close is the pitch to the park entrance and main park facilities? Do you want to be close to these for convenience, or further away, where it may be quieter?
How much recreational space, open ground or garden area is there between the caravans or close to the pitch?
If your chosen park allows owners to sublet or the park has their own hire fleet caravans, do you want to be near to or further away from these caravans? With different guests possibly staying in them every week, caravans let out to different guests each week may create more disturbance than being surrounded by privately owned caravans, occupied only by the owners and their family and friends.
If you do chose to sublet your own caravan, then you need to ensure that the park allows you to sublet in your chosen area of the park.
Are there any trees around or above your chosen pitch? While these may be attractive and provide shade in the summer, during periods of wet weather, heavy rain drops dripping from the trees can become annoying and over a period of time can discolour your caravan, unless you regularly keep it clean.

Each pitch will have its own attributes, so it is important to consider these to make sure the pitch you choose is the most suitable for your needs. Once sited, it may not be possible to move to an alternative pitch and even when it is possible, it can be expensive, especially if you have a verandah, shed or other outside facility, which may also need to be moved.

Do differing locations have differing site fees?

On some parks, differing pitch locations will attract differing annual site fees, in that the more attractive and desirable the pitch, the more expensive the annual site fees will be. On other parks, all pitches may attract the same site fee, so it is important to establish what the annual site fee will be for your chosen pitch and to make sure that you are comfortable with it.

What about car parking?

As mentioned above, an important consideration when choosing a pitch is to consider the car parking arrangements.

Does the pitch have its own car parking space by the caravan? If not, is there sufficient available parking close by?

How many family cars do you have that are likely to be regular visitors to your caravan? Is there sufficient car parking space to accommodate your vehicles or is there an alternative car park you can leave any additional vehicles in, when you have family or friends visiting? Also, consider your neighbours requirements and their available options. Caravan community areas can sometimes be quite cosy and so it is important there is sufficient space available to enable all owners to comfortably accommodate the number of cars likely to visit.

We hope you find this Guide helpful. Please note that the Guide is a general guide only to help you consider your options when considering the purchase of a caravan holiday home. As there are many differentials to consider and every caravan, caravan purchase and caravan park will vary (and have their own set of rules), it is important that you take the time to confirm those applicable to you. Should you need further assistance or information then most caravan parks will normally have a small team of sales advisors available to assist; they are a valuable source of information and should be able to answer all of your questions.

Butlins have published this guide as a general fact sheet to assist with caravan ownership.

Butlins cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever, for any omissions, considerations or information, in this guide when using it to purchase a caravan holiday home.