HL Deb 24 February 2004 vol 658 cc14-6WS
Lord Rooker

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

On Friday the Government tabled amendments to the Housing Bill which is currently being considered by the House in Committee. These amendments meet a number of the recommendations of the Park Homes Working Party and aim to deal with some of the key concerns about the existing legislation.

They amend the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to require a written statement of terms to be given to a prospective occupier 28 days before the agreement to station a park home on a site is entered into. At present written statements may be given up to three months after the agreement has commenced.

In the event of the owner failing to produce the written statement in advance, any express terms contained in the agreement will not be enforceable at the suit of the owner. This is to encourage the site owner to produce the written statement in advance, and is not likely to hold up the process of a sale.

The amendments create a power by which the Secretary of State (in Wales the National Assembly for Wales) can add additional terms to be implied into the agreement, and repeal and vary those in the Mobile Homes Act 1983. This power might be used, for example, to give an occupier the right to quiet enjoyment of their home, whereas currently an occupier would have to go to court to have this term implied into their agreement.

Because existing agreements are of infinite duration, we need to be able to amend the statutory implied terms for existing agreements, where these are clearly inadequate. Provision has therefore been made for the first exercise of the power to have retrospective effect, i.e. to allow amendment of the implied terms operating as part of existing agreements. Future exercises of the power will be non-retrospective. Any order made under the power is subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses of Parliament, and the clause contains a consultation requirement for the Secretary of State to consult interested parties as to the proposed amendments. Representatives of both site owners and occupiers will therefore be consulted about the terms of any order to be made.

Site owners will in future have a time limit of 28 days for giving or withholding approval of a prospective purchaser. By the end of this time limit a decision must have been given in writing. If not, the occupier can apply to the court for an order giving approval to that purchaser, which if given would involve the site owner in costs.

The age of a home is removed as a relevant criterion for ending an agreement. Currently a site owner may terminate an agreement on grounds of "age and condition" of the unit. The amendment will remove the reference to age from the 1983 Act, as the age of a unit is irrelevant. The amendment will enable courts to consider the condition of the unit and to allow time for appropriate repairs (if reasonably practicable).

The amendments increase the protection of occupiers of park homes against harassment and illegal eviction by amending the Caravan Sites Act 1968 to mirror the wording in the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, which governs the protection given to occupiers of conventional housing against eviction and harassment. The wording for the existing offence for a site owner doing "acts calculated to interfere with the peace or comfort" of the occupier which cause him to abandon his home has been relaxed to "acts likely to interfere" with such peace or comfort, which is obviously an easier test to satisfy. A new offence has been introduced which does not require specific intent by a site owner or his agent to cause an occupier to abandon his home. This will increase the protection available to occupiers and the chances of successful prosecutions.

The remaining recommendations of the working party need further work to ensure that when fully implemented they will work effectively in practice. To that end, we have recently commissioned consultants to develop proposals on the implementation of the recommendations in relation to site licensing.