Living in a touring caravan

Aug 29, 2010
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I may be about to have my house reposessed i am thinking of living in my caravan for a couple of years, this is not by choice but i can't afford to rent anywhere, can anyone tell me what the restrictions are, i would like to spend 3 to 6 months on a site then move on, are there sites that you can stay on for this long?
Any advice anyone can give me would be helpful
Many thanks
 
Aug 4, 2004
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We lived in ours for nearly three years but had to pack it in due to ill health. Enjoyed every minute, but we had a large twin axle with island bed which made all the difference. You don't say how many of you will be living in the caravan. On just about every caravan forum there is omeone living permanently in their caravan. If you do a search on this forum for a thread titled "Permanent caravaning" you will get a load of answer.
 
Mar 9, 2012
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yhammo3 said:
I may be about to have my house reposessed i am thinking of living in my caravan for a couple of years, this is not by choice but i can't afford to rent anywhere, can anyone tell me what the restrictions are, i would like to spend 3 to 6 months on a site then move on, are there sites that you can stay on for this long?
Any advice anyone can give me would be helpful
Many thanks

Hi yhammo3,I'm sorry to hear of your plight.You don't say which area of the country you are,whether you wish to stay close to your present home or what.It depends on where you are in the country as to the attitude of the local coucil and the medium to long term stay at sites.I spent several years 2000-2005(Self Employed) up & down the country working in different companies selling my Skill & Knowledge in my industry and using my Caravan as a base;my own B&B so to speak!.One location on the Hertforshire/Essex border I visited several times for 6-11months at a stretch.Finding sites was not easy.For the most part there is(as I recall) a maximum of Three Weeks on a Touring Park.Then there is finding the over Winter few that are open.It was back then all about the Council Tax/Community Charge.If you wish, send me a PM or other form of direct contact and I will offer you a few possible locations if I can.You may well need to provide an address before you can park up on site.I did but then again I still had my home to go back to periodically to check out post etc.
 
Aug 6, 2008
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Hi yhammo,
you can stay in briarfields caravan park near cheltenham all the year round,but you have to move off the site for one day every so often im not sure how long,you could phone them for details,phone no is 01242235324.hope this helps you a bit because you havent stated where you want to be sited.sorry about your predicament good luck in the future hope things work out for you.All the Best Alan P/T
 
May 21, 2008
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Hi there.

We have gone through simlar circumstances having sold our home and decided to go full time in our caravan. you can find plenty of help and advice from me and others on the issuses of living in your tourer fulltime.

First of all, I would get a seasonal pitch for as much of the year as you can (providing your job allows). Doing that will over come the 3 week senario, as you have paid for a pitch for a set number of months. This also works out much cheaper than paying weekly. You will want to move at the end of the season and go to an all year site. These rarely offer a winter seasonal pitch, so you will need to find one that is affordable on a weekly rent basis.

You can claim housing benifit to go towards the pitch rent (ground rent). My council took some convincing to start with as they only paid for houseboat morrings, although there were no moorings available in the county as the river is not fully navigable. But explain that a caravan pitch is equal to a river bank mooring and they soon see the equallity angle. We get a max of £40 a wk towards ground rent.

As you don't stay in one place all year, you do not need to pay council tax. Got that straight from the horse's mouth.

If you apply for a council house/housing association, you will find your on the bottom rung as they believe that as you have a caravan to live in you're ok jack.

Good luck atb steve l
 
Aug 29, 2010
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Hi
There are 2 of us we have a fixed bed single axle and an awning, i looked up the thread you mentioned thanks it was very helpful, it seems that there are more people doing this than i thought.
Thanks
 
Aug 29, 2010
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Hi Steve
Thanks myself and my partner both work full time so we don't qualify for benefits i will look into the Seasonal pitch idea.
Thanks for all your help.
Yvonne
 
Aug 29, 2010
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Hi Alan
Thanks for that, that's what i love about caravanners everbody shares information and are always willing to help.
Thanks
Yvonne
 
May 21, 2008
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No worries Yvonne.

A couple of things I found to be tricky to overcome.

Post:- As we stayed in our original area, we could use a post collection service from our sorting office. They sorted and kept post addressed to us but not the new owner of our house, so we could then pick it up in person from the sorting office. This was a handy (free) service that we kept for a year until we had sorted an alternative postal address.

Taxing the car:- By far the easiest way is to do it on-line, which is why we did the post thingy. The local post office declined to tax our car once because the insurance had a differing address to the log book. I argued the point that, the car is insured by registration number and that the driver may quite legitimately not be the keeper or owner if it was a lease car or company car. I still had to go 30 miles to the DVLA office where they taxed the car without any fuss, and when I explained the fiasco, they couldn't understand the post office's stance.

There's loads of tips and advice available on all aspects of year round caravanning, available on the forum written by myself and fellow full timers who have had to find the solution sometimes, the hard way.

Make the jobs fun rather than a chore, so that you don't loose heart. One other tip, dress like tourist's at the weekend to blend in with those townies, who go back to the rodent race. That way you don't stand out in the crowd.

Atb Steve L.
 
Aug 10, 2010
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Hi sorry to hear of your situation, we took the big step forward and gave up our house (we were renting) to live full time in our caravan, we both work, run two cars and so far we are loving every minute of it.
You can see more about how we are getting on as we are writing a blog about our experiences!
You can find us at http://ourlifeinacaravan.blogspot.com
You can contact me direct on there, any questions just let me know,

Jools & "M"
 
Jul 25, 2010
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Hi bakers cottage, I read your blog for the 26 sept. I was going to leave a little note but the message box thing would not work properly.
So I will tell you here. I enjoyed reading it, it made me chuckle a bit when you talked about the elson point. A good way to clear the synus. Hope all goes well for you.
 
Sep 16, 2010
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oh hi we in same boat going bankrupt next week i think that costs 1,000 then we woulkd need 1500 rent deposit aaaaargh!!!!!!!!! so the van (if they dont take it away worth £700ish) looks a good option, dont fancy inner city bolton all we could afford aa am a country gal.
 
Sep 16, 2010
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oh btw we are from preston but need to be nearee bolton. Not many sites in the middle of the city hahahah what is going on with me fonts?????????????
 
Aug 5, 2010
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Been living in he van and loving it, however the one problem I find is storage, even as a single living in a fixed bed t/a I found I had to be careful what I took as space was limited, espicialy for clothes.
 
Jan 3, 2010
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I lived in ours for 3 months last year, jan, feb, march due to a divorce, it was ok for the first few weeks but then I found it very restricted as you only have one room to live, eat and sleep so you can't get get a change of scenery, found myself going a bit stir crazy after a while. In the end I had to bite the bullet and go into rented accommodation which was good, it was a houseshare and only cost me £200 a month, maybe you could try that.
Martin.
 
Sep 16, 2010
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we got 2 dogs and there are 2 of us but i take the point about space bet winter is hardest, anyways nothing to lose cos living in the van we could save to get deposit on a rental thats if we dont end up working for the club fingers still crossed we will know end October, got CAB meeting Wed wish us luck.
 
May 21, 2008
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Storage can be a problem but you have to think outside the box and the problem is easily solved. We have an all year awning with our 18ft caravan. We use half as storage using a plastic garden cuboard for the PC printer and paperwork etc. Then we use those 4 draw storage units you see in B&M bargains for £15 each.I have made 6 towers 6 draws high. These clear draws make looking for clothes easy. We also use 80 Litre storage boxes for tins of food and the pots & pans. When we move, I can stack the boxes on the roof rack of the car and put the draws inside the van.

We endured the worst winter in 30 years in Herefordshire last year and had to move sites in 7" of snow. I even had to dig the pitch out at the new site which took 3 hours, but we were settled in within the week. We use two XXL size puffa coats to lag our water barrels, using the sleeve to insulate the water pump pipe. I also errect our porch awning to cover the water barrel area on the off side of the van. It also provides shelter when changing the water over. Again thinking outside the box and preparing for the worst case , makes life easier when things do go wrong.

So far we have managed to live as 2 + dog and have our daughter stay at each end of uni term. We even cooked a full turkey christmas dinner 3 coarses for 6 people and had fun doing it. I've had 3 operations and recovered at the van much better than when at home. My last operation was last friday to resurface my shoulder socket and remove bone spurs, and as you can see I'm now able to type quite well already.

Atb Steve L.
 
Aug 10, 2010
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We rent a lock up garage, where we store our unused/not needed gear, however, before we moved out of bricks and mortar, we were very ruthless in what we kept! Our clothes were divided into winter and summer, we are still in summer mode, Im still wearing shorts! (that could change in the next few days)! So will be swapping over very shortly!
Not sure if we travel light or our caravan has loads of storage, but we are no where near full, with lockers still half empty! We do have, as does Steve a full size awning which we find very usefull, currently housing our tumble dryer and an assortment of wild-life!
I would recommend though trying to get as big a caravan as possible, guess we are lucky and managed to get a 7.8m lunar lexon with fixed island bed, seperate toilet and a good size shower cubicle. So we dont have any feelings of being cramped at all. All though before we got this van we were going to be embarking on our adventure in a 2 berth abbey gt 212 !! It may of been a different story then!
Thankfully all has worked out well and you can see more of what we are upto at http://ourlifeinacaravan.blogspot.com or on twitter at http://twitter.com/caravanliving
Either way Im glad we have made the jump - it was the right thing for us to do - and we are loving every minute of it!
Till later...
 
Mar 6, 2019
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Hi there, I can't get on your blog it keeps going to something about servers. I have just noticed your post is 8 years ago ! Are you still living in the caravan? Was going to ask what you did for insurance.
 

Damian

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Mar 14, 2005
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The poster, bakers cottage, has not been on the forum since 2011 so I doubt vey much he will see or reply.
 

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