Permanent Caravanning.

[Parksy]

I mentioned the page malfunction in this topic last week Emmerson, do try to keep up

Obviously permanent caravanning isn't everybody's cup of tea, I wouldn't want to do it at my time of life especially now that the mortgage is finished but for those with the right outlook on life - good luck. I've often noticed through forum posts that those who have chosen this alternative lifestyle seem to be optimists who seldom worry too much about old age, I wish I was more like that sometimes

 

[OmOnWeelz]

'nadsia'
May be it's a little hard to ask questions about this life style without seeming to pry or be offensive about other's living style. There may be ways around most things but are you saying that they are all straight forward and above board. I've heard of people using relatives addresses for insurance purposes, I don't know if this is normal, for full timers, but I do know that there's a good chance that an insurer will not pay out if they find the address you've given is not 100% legit.
I lived in a tent and the back of a van and slept in my office in the past, I made do and I could cope with it, but that's not the same as what I was used too or what I really wanted. A young member of our family came across this thread at Christmas and has now been considering full time caravanning with his partner. It's hard to tell from the many pages in this section as to if it's really a good idea or if those that 'full time' are 'making do' or ignoring a number of future pitfalls.
Six months touring in the caravan is our longest outing, but holidaying and touring with a nice house to go home to is a lot different to full timing and going to work or living with the ravages of old age in a caravan.

 

[nadsia]

No offence taken in anyway,each person who does this deals with things in their own way or by any means that suits them and its quite surprising the imformation you can gleen from places like CAB an so on.Without this sounding predudiced how do you think the foreign people manage so well when they get over here.It's all about research and mutual agreement with other parties.I beleive life is like the weather ya never know what it will do next!.Who knows what the future will throw at us,but for the time being i'll take this way of living.Maybe i'll go back to bricks and mortar in the future or when me legs just won't lift me into the van anymore.At the end of the day who knows who's right or wrong,people just have to live the dream from time to time.At least in years to come i can say i gave it a go.I can't say i have all the answers cause i'm still learning,All i will say is that i wouldn't just jump into it without a great deal of planning & reasearch.All the best for now,we are off to see relatives in Oz for a few weeks.g'day.Kev & Christina.

 

[Steve L]

Hi Parksy.
This topic seems to be gaining a blank page per day. Just thought I'd chip in, it might help the boffins at tech HQ.
When I started full timing, we found CAB not too helpfull.
We're in Herefordshire where the council (Until I educated them) would pay house boat mooring fees for the navigable river Wye, where there is virtually no free public access to any part of the river bank let alone launching facilities for boats bigger than a canoe!
My info was gleaned from fellow caravanners and tinternet. Plus good old foot work. As with any benefit help from our tax grabbing government, you have to find the info that say's your entitled to claim and ram it under their noses before anyone admit's responsability.

 

[fudgethecat]

Hi all
Lots of interesting reading, Chris obviously you are very concerned about whether you have bricks & mortar, security etc., this is also important to me and the reason we plan on living in our van for a while is to save to buy one again in the future. However, that being said, if the housing market continues in the downward spiral as it has, unless you are fortunate enough to not have a mortage you could in fact find yourself in negative equity, of which many of my friends have in the 90's and had to pay thousands to get out of their mortages or foreclose on them. I'd rather have a new £16K caravan that might only be worth £2K in 10 years then the prospect of owing thousands. You give some very good things to think about however, i.e. car insurance, voting, doctors, post, etc., I need to trawl through all the pages on this post to see how people have gone about this and for it to be legal. It's always good to get the other side of the coin so to speak because whether this is for you or not, playing devils advocate is always what I like to do so you have been helpful : )
We are swaying to buy a second hand compass rallye 634 fixed bed, end washroom and lots of storage space. It has an onboard tank which should help partly with the cold weather and an L-shaped lounge. We spent last weekend looking around hundreds of caravans to get a feel for what it would be like to live in. This particular one is 20 ft 7in internal length, which I think is great. If we find it a bit cramped we can always find another site which will allow us to pitch up an awning, which would give us masses of space. As we are due to move out of our rented accomodation in June, I think it will at first feel like we are on holiday and also a great time to decide if we want to do it full time or not. We both earn good money, if it doesn't work out and we don't like it as we thought we would we can always rent again, so no worries on that front. We are fortunate that this is not something we 'have' to do, it is something we 'choose' to do and that makes a huge difference. I have a very stressful job and just the thought of not having the responsiblity of a huge home to care for along with the associated bills etc., will be a great relief for me personally and with each day that passes my husband and I are getting more excited at the prospect of doing it. Of course, we set out with intrepidation, but it's what makes life interesting.
It's great to have people like Steve etc., on here to help guide the uneducated like me, keep up the good work and I'm sure I'll be a posting regular too : )

 

[Steve L]

Hi Fudge.
We were forced to sell our place 3 years ago, when I was made redundant. I was in the motor component manufacturing sector which was getting battered by the recession that isn't having a double dip no matter how tuff it is out there to trade. You know what I mean

We took the decission to sell before forecloseure thinking that we would protect our credit rating and good name, but that seems the wrong decission. In the eyes of the councils etc, we intentionally made our selves homeless so drop to the bit of the housing ladder under the foot of said ladder stuck in the ground.
However, having our own caravan has been a god send, we can go where we like when we like and have met a great group of fellow caravanners. At present our site has us, another caravan and two motor homes, all fulltiming. We will be joined mid feburary by my mate from Eardisland who has been in Germany visiting his family. He has a static van on our summer site, but has to do the same 7 week move out as we do. He had a 27ft motorhome, but changed to a caravan for more practicality of one car does all.
My daughter is moving into a house (rented) next week but I think she will regret it. The monthly overheads even with a holiday cottage including council tax in the rent will soon catch up on her.
Our electric for 1st March 2010 to 7th Jan 2011 came to £460 all in and we had £40 of bottled gas in the same time. So utilities came to £50 a month average. We weren't stingey either, we had heat if we needed and cooked on gas.
My wife's mother takes our post for us which saved a bit of bother. We had a collect at the sorting office going on, as we had not moved out of our locality. But the post office didn't like it after 18 months, despite the online application having no time scale period. It was usefull while it lasted, but a friend's address is better.
Another good tip is to use plastic storage boxes for everything you put in the awning. They alieviate animal burglary and a clear plastic box for tinned foods etc makes finding tea easy avoiding sess sessions. Also when you do need to spend a night without the awning, stackable boxes are a great help. Even to the point of a stack at the side of the van and a green tarp dropped over. A barbie cover is perfect for this and only a fiver.

Most of my time has been spent thinking outside the box on caravanning within the tourist community, and teaching the local council to do joined up thinking when it comes to applying common sense to their ever complicated systems

The most important tool in your skillset will definately be keeping a sense of humor at all times. (easier said than done I admit)

 

[fudgethecat]

Hi Steve
Sorry to hear about you being made redundant, it doesn't have the same stigma it used to have years ago, I have taken voluntary redundancy twice and it hasn't harmed my job prospects, plus it gives me a bit of capital to stay at home for a while, not ever having kids I have taken the time out in the past to have some me time : ) It has been over 5 years now since I last did this and I'm getting itchy feet to do it again, but we are not making any (at the moment) in my dept., so I will have to sit tight and volunteer if they do.
Both my hubby and I are hoping that we can stay at the site we have found for the whole time, they are privately run, basically it was a farm/pub/golf course which the owners then added the caravan park. They also do caravan storage so if there is a space of time we need to vacate our van, we will ask them to keep it in storage while we live elsewhere, between hotels, parents, holidays and friends I think we can vacate for the 1 month I think you have to not to pay council tax.
The current owners of the house we are renting have been in touch, while our lease does not expire until June, they are looking at selling the place we live in for far much more than we would ever pay for it as we know what is wrong with it after renting it for 3 years. The original owner was their step mother and she died in November and we are now holding up the sale by being in here. According to our contract they cannot put a for sale board nor show anyone the property until 6 weeks prior to our contract expiring, which will take us early May. We do not want people coming and going for those 6 weeks and the landlord as written to us to say he will be prepared to terminate the contract early if we want. We are seriously considering this and moving out in March when the nights are lighter and it is slightly warmer. Our problem is we can't get a new van until April when I get my bonus so we have to make the decision to move into our 2 berth van with awning and move it every 2 weeks for a couple of months and just have a pitch with electric hook up, or go onto a fully serviced pitch with it with no awning and most probably kill each other, LOL. It isn't a small 2 berth it is over 15 foot long with a full end bathroom, which I love, it's the sleeping arrangements and the fact I work from home 2 - 3 days a week which will cause the problems, plus our kitty cat who has a meow on her that would match a dogs bark due to her being deaf.
I have been doing lots of research and am now starting to get itchy feet and want to start packing everything up ready for storage already, I don't think we can begin soon enough, we live in a huge 4 bedroom bungalow, which we have managed to fill, we need to decide what to keep for when we eventually move into another house or find that permanent carvanning is not for us, don't want to be left with nothing if this turns out to be the case. I have already found lots of things I would like to get rid of so am making a list of to sell and to just take to the tip or donate to local homeless charities, i.e. the 8 spare sets of bed linen that god knows hasn't seen the light of day for years (why do I still have them all?) : )
Take care and Iook forward to hearing from you again soon.

 

[JonnyG]

Having followed this thread with great interest from the beginning,and having had the greatest of respect for those that indeed do permanent caravanning, i had to take issue with a few comments of late.
First one concerned negative equity, hate those words mean nothing and only effect a very very small number of home owners and of this small number many differing things can indeed have an effect, from buying just prior to a housing collapse, and or finding yourself unable to pay your monthly mortgage at that specific time, to having an endowment mortgage that didn't perform.

But for the vast vast majority of home owners these small issues never come to the front and even for a lot of home-owners that it does, there has always been ways around this. so the words "negative equity" annoy me as a home is far more than just a so called investment and will never really devalue if you take a look at a property worth over your lifetime, unlike most other things.
So negative equity only applies if you are actually trying to get the equity out of something you are still paying for,and even then it only applies to a very small number of people, so it is not a generalisation of things anyway.

Followed steve [leo] threads as he does give a good insight on how to carry out this life style, but steve your last post concerning "the good life" of being able to move around isnt entirely relevant is it, for most people who have jobs to go to, although I do like the idea of extended time in the van to tour fulltime say for a year or two is appealing but always with the choice to get back to my bricks and mortar, and indeed you yourself and another poster are both wanting/waiting to get back into houses! so hardly the "permanent caravanners" who have no wish to go back to bricks and mortar? indeed what this thread has shown is the few that have done this on a temporary basis inform us of how good it is, whilst they themselves look for bricks and mortar.

 

[brightmore]

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
A wise man does not need advice and a fool won't take it."

Those words at the end of your last entry just about sum up your atitude. To say that the words 'negative equity mean nothing ' is nonsense....especially to those caught in the trap. If those words annoy you then you have lucky enough never to have been in such a position. For those who have it is a nightmare and in most cases caused through no fault of there own. I think your comments are very unfair and have really nothing to do with caravaning in general anyway, and if you are going to quote Socrates, (he was a Greek philosopher by the way, not a Brazillian footballer) try this one
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"

 

[JonnyG]

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
A wise man does not need advice and a fool won't take it."

Those words at the end of your last entry just about sum up your atitude. To say that the words 'negative equity mean nothing ' is nonsense....especially to those caught in the trap. If those words annoy you then you have lucky enough never to have been in such a position. For those who have it is a nightmare and in most cases caused through no fault of there own. I think your comments are very unfair and have really nothing to do with caravaning in general anyway, and if you are going to quote Socrates, (he was a Greek philosopher by the way, not a Brazillian footballer) try this one
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"

my reply was based on what I have read in this thread,so surely it is relevant!

"nonsense" "negative equity " does not make one homeless, never has never will the not having the ability to pay ones mortgage makes one homeless not words!
These days it seems its never "their own fault" or the word "lucky"is chucked into the face of anyone who seems to have avoided apparent pitfalls!

"trap" what trap did you not read my post properly? In real terms it can only effect an endowment type morgage,or as i previously said ealier!
so did negative equity make anyone homeless? or was it circumstances revolving around the ability to pay ones mortgage because of whatever unfortunate or in lot of circumstances irresponsible actions!

Yes I have been around long enough to know a few who have unfortunately gone down that path, some indeed through illness and long term redundancy, but most lived it up beyond their means and bad money handling and then used the words "negative equity" as some sort of mystic force that worked against them! please.....

 

[fudgethecat]

JohnnyG
If you are not interested in permanent carvanning and all you have to do is pick holes in what others are saying then your life must be very boring indeed. This thread is for people, who for whatever reason either choose to live in their caravan for a period of time or have been unfortunate enough that they have 'feel' they have no other choice, or other reasons which they so choose.
I am the one who wrote about negative equity, this was a term used generally and if you disagree with the term then write to someone who cares what you think and ask them delete it from our language if you do not feel there is such a thing!
If we are talking on the terms of permanent, even your house is not permanent, you will die some day and it will go to whomever, possibly be knocked down for future development so nothing is ever permanent, but there you go again, picking on another word, you obviously do not like the use of. Quite frankly you are very unhelpful so not really sure why you were even bothering to make the time to respond.

 

[fudgethecat]

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
A wise man does not need advice and a fool won't take it."

Those words at the end of your last entry just about sum up your atitude. To say that the words 'negative equity mean nothing ' is nonsense....especially to those caught in the trap. If those words annoy you then you have lucky enough never to have been in such a position. For those who have it is a nightmare and in most cases caused through no fault of there own. I think your comments are very unfair and have really nothing to do with caravaning in general anyway, and if you are going to quote Socrates, (he was a Greek philosopher by the way, not a Brazillian footballer) try this one
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"

Well said brightmore, I couldn't agree more

 

[JonnyG]

Post Deleted

 

[OmOnWeelz]

Buying bricks and mortar is a long term investment for most people, that's why most people start with a 20+ year mortgage. Like the investment companies say, your investment can go up and down. It is short sighted to think that you can borrow many times your salary and sit back and rely on market force staying stable.
Full timing in a caravan it's never going to be an asset that appreciates in value, it's easy to be taken in by this thread that full timing is a wonderful easy life style. Having a young family member who is now considering full timing a lot of questions still have to be answered.
Taking a mortgage now will be a struggle, full timing they have to buy and outfit and eat in to their deposit. if house prices fall they may have been able to save money and then join the housing ladder, if house prices start to rise in a year or two how will they fair. It may be easy for older people to make the choice but this section opens a lot of questions and leaves a lot of questions to be answered if it tempts others without knowing of all the pitfalls.

 

[Wendy-Norfolk]

Hats off to you all who full time - if I had the guts to do it, I would!

 

[fudgethecat]

Hi
Well we are well on the way to moving into our van now, I just had another question, what do you do about insuring your caravan? I have been looking at several insurance companies and most of them state that they do not cover touring caravans if they are being used as a permanent residence? Do you go for Static caravan quotes or just call up insurance companies rather than go on line? If you know of any good insurers that do cover for living in your van would appreciate if you could reply. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Steve L]

Hi Fudge.
That was a sticky point for us too.
It's not quite strictly legal as such, but if you use a relative's address to register your car, driving license, bank account, as a general postal address etc. You could on paper at least agrgue that you have a uk bricks and mortar contact address. It's another bit of conventionalist narrow minded beurockracey that hasn't kept pace with the times we are forced to live in today.

Also you might well be better off with going to a non caravan connected insurer as such. We use NFU for ours. I chose that because my self employment public liability insurance is with them as I predominately worked within the farming community. So far i've not had a claim, so the acid test hasn't happened yet. I don't know how they would cover for instance if I actually sited my van on a farm to build a chicken shed and used a non standard hook up (13amp household plug to round caravan hook up cable adaptor). I mention that because a vast number of people who store their vans at home use that adaptor for electric supply.

Again it's another situation where you have to think outside the box and perhaps be a little creative with the application form, as it shouldn't realy matter if you use your caravan all year. To me it's a clause to perhaps "stigmatise" those of us who don't live in a shoebox house paying through the nose for your utilities.

On that point I can say I realy don't miss all those cold call sales reps and door knocking kids on a dare. Woe betide a polatition if they decide to come knocking. I'd have to decide if I'm left or right winged??!! ( get my drift).

 

[Steve L]

I forgot to add fudge that, since I've been fulltiming, I've not met anyone who has been shall we say choosy as to wether or not to pitch next to us. Mind you we don't look any different to any other caravanner, except in winter when we put up a porch awning around the water barrels to keep them frost free, or use a couple of XXL waterproof puffa jackets to lag our barrels.

The only teltale that we perhaps live fulltime is that we are often the only van still functioning at -10c. I get loads of people asking why I put anoracks as they call them on our barrels and why I've got 2 watsemasters and 2 water barrels. When I explain the benefits and reasons why they are quite amused. Another point of fulltiming is that after the first full year, you've got all the tools and bits & bobs needed to avert breakdowns and I have helped other less prepared caravanners out many times in the winter.

As in any walk of life I still find that 99.9% of folks are fine, but you do still get the "odd one" who doesn't know how to treat everyone equally and respectfully. But then that's folk for ya.

I always smiled at at post card on my brother-in-laws fridge, it said:- Never try to keep up with the Jones's, drag them down to your level, it's cheaper.
I think it sums up peoples perceptions of life a treat.

 

[Damian]

Quote "Again it's another situation where you have to think outside the box and perhaps be a little creative with the application form, as it shouldn't realy matter if you use your caravan all year. To me it's a clause to perhaps "stigmatise" those of us who don't live in a shoebox house paying through the nose for your utilities"

I have kept out of this topic as I do not van full time, however, getting "tips" like this is setting you on a sure fire way to trouble.
To make any false statement on an inurance proposal WILL invalidate the insurance.
The reason insurers need to know if you are full timimng is that it increases the risk factor significantly, it has nothing at all to do with "stigmatising" people.
Also be aware that warranties on appliances etc will not be valid for full time use, as a caravan is a "Recreational Leisure Vehicle", it is NOT a full time living accomodation.

 

[Surfer]

Also be aware that warranties on appliances etc will not be valid for full time use, as a caravan is a "Recreational Leisure Vehicle", it is NOT a full time living accomodation.

The above statment is incorrect. We full timed in our caravan and the dealer and the manufacturer were fully aware of our status and they had to honour the warranties. A car can be purchased as a leisure vehicle and then when the need arises used full time. Does thwt man it will not have a warranty. Sale of Goods Act does not define a recreational leisure vehicle from a normal vehicle. What would happen if some one spent 2 years touring the Ul or the continent? Does this mean they have no warranty on the caravan?

 

[Surfer]

Hi
Well we are well on the way to moving into our van now, I just had another question, what do you do about insuring your caravan? I have been looking at several insurance companies and most of them state that they do not cover touring caravans if they are being used as a permanent residence? Do you go for Static caravan quotes or just call up insurance companies rather than go on line? If you know of any good insurers that do cover for living in your van would appreciate if you could reply. Thanks again for your help.

I can advise how we did a workaround legally, but can't advise online. I think Steve is in the same boat.

 

[Steve L]

To be quite honest Damian. Unless you've had to live fulltime in a caravan your right to say that you don't know just how difficult it is to remain as close to normal with regard to things like warrantee's (which are on the van not the person), taxing your car at a post office (if the addresses on the tax form are different from the insurance cert. Again your taxing a car not the addressee).

I've had to claim housing benefit to help pay for a pitch. The council were perfectly fine about me using my mother-in-law's address although it is already registered as a housing benefit claim address, to send my forms to and use as a postal address.

So having to "be creative when filling forms out" has been accepted by even local council authorities. There's nothing illegal about using a "care of" (C/O) address for any postal contact. It's simply getting around the norrow minded thinking of people who think that there is no alternative to being in bricks and mortar. You'll actually find the same advice from "Citizens advice beuro" (can't spell it but you should know what I mean).

I think you've forgotten one prime thing about a forum. It's here for us to share experiences and give tips and advice on all subjects related to caravanning. Sometimes the tips offered are possably not totaly perfect but when you don't satisfy conventionalisum, you do have to think outside the box!
It is also upto the individual if they choose to accept the tip and even then it's upto them to establish for their own piece of mind that for instance that insurers know the address on the form is a care of address.
The company I used is fully aware of my care of address and why. So too is the Inland Revenue as I had to register self employed with them for my cis4 card which by the way can get you landed in prison if the details on that are wrong. I think I've now established that C/O addresses are accepted practice.
Another example of this type of living is living on houseboats moored on rivers. Often there they have to use the marina office as a registered address or do as we have and utilise a relative's address.

When you don't live at number 10 Down Street, Townyville, Conventionalshire. But still in the UK. Getting acceptable understanding from systematic society often takes negotiation and compromise.

 

[Parksy]

Steve, I'm sure that many of us can appreciate the position that you in when living full time in a touring caravan. Nobody want to make life difficult for you but your earlier comments about caravan insurance might be seen as ambiguous to say the least.
It's not clear if you have informed your caravan insurer that you are living full time in your caravan and by using the home address of a relative unless the position regarding your living arrangements in your tourer rather than at the relatives address is made100% clear to the insurance company you would at the very least have deceived them and failed to disclose material facts which might affect a future claim which would then be regarded as fraudulent. Deception and fraud are criminal offences Steve.
What you choose to do as far as form filling is nobody's business but your own, if any deception has taken place (and I'm not saying that it has) then you are the one who will face the consequences.
Besides the rules of the forum in forum etiquette there are the Terms & Conditions for using this website. I'm not going to quote chapter and verse but amongst the T&C's are the phrases:
You must not use this website to disseminate any material which does or may bring Haymarket or any of its brands or subsidiaries into dispute or in any way damage their reputation.
You must not use this website to disseminate any material which constitutes or encourages conduct that may be considered a criminal offence or give rise to civil liability in any country in the world.

You wrote earlier:
Friday 28th January 8:05am

'It's not quite strictly legal as such, but if you use a relative's address to register your car, driving license, bank account, as a general postal address etc. You could on paper at least agrgue that you have a uk bricks and mortar contact address. It's another bit of conventionalist narrow minded beurockracey that hasn't kept pace with the times we are forced to live in today.'

Sunday 30th January 7:11am

'I think you've forgotten one prime thing about a forum. It's here for us to share experiences and give tips and advice on all subjects related to caravanning. Sometimes the tips offered are possably not totaly perfect but when you don't satisfy conventionalisum, you do have to think outside the box!'

. Moderators have to ensure that advice given doesn't break the rules or the terms and conditions of this forum Steve, if it's 'not quite strictly legal as such' as you mentioned then we'd rather not know about it thanks

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

Just out of curiosity what would be the legal way to register your car, insurance documents, and all the other legalities etc when you are living full time in your caravan? not that I am contemplating residing in my caravan full time as I enjoy my creature comforts to much, but I do applaud those who have taken up the challenge and enjoy there alternative lifestyle.

Allan & Gill

 

[JonnyG]

I tend to agree with cookieones, on this point. I mean when Steve stated "it was not strictly legal" Surely for those of us that have followed his plight, one can only assume this was the only way for Steve to do things, as there is no alternative.And when stating "it was not strictly legal" one can assume, that there is nothing in place in law that actually covers these issues,so therefore highly unlikely that steve would end up in front of a magistrate, and found guilty of illegal actions.
So again for those contemplating full time caravanning, surely Steves advice is sound, first hand,and at this point in time accurate too?