Parking At Home Or Storage? (1 Viewer)

[Scout]

were in the poccess of trying to downsize house.

We have allways had the m/h at home and caravan prior to that, but its getting difficault to find a place were we can do that, theres a good stoage site within 5 miles of our intended new place that reasonable in fees and good with surcurity.

How much of a dis-advantage is stoagage over parking at home, has anyone gone this route one way or the other?

 

[Wildman]

security, keeping the batteries charged, loss of a spare room, takes longer to load for a trip, extra expence.

 

[mjltigger]

If it's where you see it every day you are more likely to use it.

If it gets stolen from storage it could be in another country before you notice

If it a outside your house you always ha e a spare room

You can put power in it for fridge and heating if it is outside your house.

 

[Ralph-n-Bev]

We've always kept caravans and Motorhome in secure storage.
Unless you've got a big private garden , or room around the back, having a big lump of white in your front garden bit of an eyesore..
Especially for the neighbours, if close by.
Maybe even blocking their light.
People can see when you are away from home , if it's not there. Leaving your property more open to burglary .
Less likely to be stolen in a high fenced , double gated secure storage with roaming guard dogs at night. Then on your drive.
Cheaper insurance for gold award storage.
Everything kept topped up with fixed solars on the roof. So no need to hook up.

Saying all that, if we could get our PVC around into our back garden. We would. ( we've all on getting it down the drive !)
When we downsize from a 4 bed detached, we'd like to get somewhere with more garden. So this would be possible.
Not having to think about an area with a good school (kids all at work now) will make this very possible.
We'd still like detached , but it would be the land that would be the main thing. Big enough to store Pug, have Ralph's lock up hopefully.
Ralph could renovate , extend the property if not up to scratch.

 

[Judge Mental]

we are downsizing home next year..would not consider a property without adequate storage for the multitude of obvious reasons....

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[Scout]

If it's where you see it every day you are more likely to use it.

If it gets stolen from storage it could be in another country before you notice

If it a outside your house you always have a spare room

You can put power in it for fridge and heating if it is outside your house.

yes werve had all of these advantages, and the extra room thing is a big plus as we could go down a bedroom in the house (or problibly a bungalow).

its really hard trying to find somewere within budget to and park the m/h ad cars in an area were we like, which is why we are reluctantly looking at possible storage. Of course as an when we get older and no longer work, having it at home to flit away at no notice/planning would be something we would miss

 

[Kool Kroozer]

We kept ours in storage for a little under 12 months (was actually about 10 months but we had paid for 12 up front) we have 4 cars in the family an not enough room for the camper but we hated keep having to go up the storage place every time we wanted to do something - and its not necessarily always safe in storage either - the storage company we kept our at really was like Fort Knocks, the chances of it being stolen i would say is nil, but it doesn't stop it from getting damaged by others who park nearby (who cant park n drive) - we bought ours home and cant ever see it going back into storage, so much better having it where you can see it and to have a tinker with it at the same time. All the cars are parked on the road now, an once the kids leave home parking wont be a problem !

 

[Scout]

just added a poll,

go have a vote

 

[34127]

On some properties there is a covenant that stops you from parking motorhomes on the drive or garden. Don't know how this gets enforced, presumably only needs a neighbour to complain and then you have to remove the vehicle.

 

[Kool Kroozer]

Put it this way, if you dont use it for a couple of weeks and you go to the storage yard and it wont start cos the battery is flat you will start to think i wish i could keep it at home... as for the insurance, the storage site is a Gold Cassoa site and the insurance was no difference to whether it was kept at home or in storage, can only speak for my own insurer though (Who is "Advanced Insurance" )

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[Deleted member 29692]

Ours is in a Cassoa Gold site with good security. When we first got it, it lived on the road outside the house for a while because the driveway isn't big enough. That pissed the neighbours off and the insurance company weren't too happy either. It's not that expensive to keep there and the insurance is cheaper. The solar takes care of the batteries so I'm not worried about charging. The only downside is the 20 mins each way to go and get it which isn't a big deal really.

 

[Ralph-n-Bev]

we are downsizing home next year..would not consider a property without adequate storage for the multitude of obvious reasons....

This was a problem for us 10 years ago.
We needed 4 beds, enough room for Ralph's work pick up out of sight and 1 car.
Now the 3 kids are older, only one has a car , so far.......
So that's 2 cars and a pickup. We also had to be in a nice quiet area with a good Primary school and secondary school.
Which narrowed us down a lot.
Now we don't want to move to far out of the area , kids are working but still at home......
But moving to the otherside of town would be cheaper, easier for our daughters bus to work. It would also enable us to have the same size house but more land. Which would save having to pay for mh storage ann paying Ralph's lock up too.
Once we've cleared the mortgage off at the end of this month, and Ralph's finished converting Pug, I think we may start house hunting.

 

[Abacist]

Not just a spare room but an additional oven at Christmas when all the family come around!

As far as covenants are concerned it is possible to enforce a covenant against a neighbour as I remember my father doing it years ago to get a caravan removed that was blocking their light. It was costly but worth it for them. Normally you have to try and get the person who put the covenant in place to enforce it which is normally the builder or developer but once the site is completed they are often no longer interested. Then you have to go it alone and go to court which is what costs the money.

 

[Scout]

so another question,

say there two simular propertys, one with extra parking for m/h one without

how much extra would you be prepared to pay for the property with could house all your cars and your motorhome

 

[Scout]

Once we've cleared the mortgage off at the end of this month, and Ralph's finished converting Pug, I think we may start house hunting.

us tooredundancy has its advantages

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[Kool Kroozer]

storage costs by us roughly £450/500 per year, then there is all the traveling back an fourth to go get it from storage, just something to way up in the options

 

[big map]

Advantages undercover storage, on hook up, not obvious when away
Disadvantages packing and unpacking
But we have no choice as driveway is full it has hubby's van, my car, daughters camper and car, toad and sons car when he is at home! Anyone remember Wendy craig butterflies?

 

[Judge Mental]

as we live in London unusually we are pretty lucky with enough storage for van and cars...Plus storage would be a real PIA as nothing nearby. We are hoping to move to south coast around Worthing. I must admit storage could be an option there, and would free up the choices of property considerably..food for thought!

 

[Paddywack]

Home for us, had a 1960's double garage with a central pillar that was too narrow for modern cars, took roof off, add a metre and extend by 3 (future proofing for the next van!) put in a steel frame to support roof. I reckon that the advantages of folk not knowing we are away and protection it provides the van make it worthwhile.

 

[gus-lopez]

As above. Ensure the garage ,pàrking etc ; is adequate for all needs & worry about house after. You can always sleep on the floor.

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[icantremember]

For us the m/h has to be at home as we seem to always be wanting something stored in it and I enjoy fettling, all those little jobs/repairs that would not get done if it was parked away.

When we downsized our home 5 years ago we were lucky that the first and only place we looked at had previously been owned by caravaners who, when the bungalow was built, had the builders provide hard standing behind gates for their tourer.

 

[whoa]

Keep our van on the front drive, loads of room at the back but no access, the front drive really did dictate the size of vehicle we could accommodate, drive in depth is about 6.6m although 10m wide it would have ended up in front of the window and front door, however wife feels she wouldn't want to drive anything bigger, van is 4.97m long, but we're doing alright in it due to plenty of Central space, and rear seating that can be moved nearly the full length of the van depending what we need, and swivelling front seats

 

[Scout]

just been out curb crawling, nothing looks like it does on the internet!!

come back home for refreshments and off again, I hope Im not on crime-whatch next month because Ive had some funny looks

Has anybody used person leafleting, "do you want to sell your house" with success or will that just put the price up?

 

[sweetie]

When we moved to our current bungalow 13 years ago, the driveway was the main thing we looked for at 26m long it suited well. We told the estate agent we would pay full price before we even looked inside.
Talking to my next door neighbour this morning who keeps his caravan in storage, went to it on wednesday as engineer was coming to service and found someone had reversed into front and put a hole in it the height of a bike rack on motorhome. A motorhome is usually stored next to his caravan but was away, dealer estimate to repair £1200.00.
The motorhome would go if I could not store at home.

 

[icantremember]

Has anybody used person leafleting, "do you want to sell your house" with success or will that just put the price up?

Not personally but very good friends across the road leafleted around the area and got a reply from which they bought their bungalow.

If there is a particular property or road you are interested in buying then there is nothing to loose by leafleting and possibly a lot to gain.

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[MikeandCarolyn]

Put our van on Gold storage site in 2009-Saga would not give discount,they said that it didn't make any difference what sort of site it was-they went on post code.
We actually got better rate from them having it at home on drive-so that's where it ended up.
We had put it on a storage site because a friend had his there and said it was much safer than at home.He would,and still does,bring his to his house the day before going away to pack it (he has to leave it on road in front of his Marina property as there are no drive ways there.
We found it all too much hassle,and ,once we came back after 2 mths to find the car battery flat so we had to jump start that from the van after travelling all day and just wanting to get home.
So,we spent over £3k widening one of our driveways to accept the van,removing a greenhouse and putting in a hard standing and 2 sets of solid wood 7ft high gates
When we downsized last yr a forecourt with room for M/Home and 2 cars was a priority.It certainly narrowed down our choices.

 

[Wildbill]

our van is parked on the road and sod the Nabors the Nabors haven't had to many problems
bill

 

[magicsurfbus]

We have no space or level parking for it in the road, and although we can just about fit it diagonally onto the garden it blocks the light into our lounge and isn't much fun for the neighbour to look at from his lounge, so it's in secure storage behind two metal gates with CCTV cover only 10 minutes' drive from home. We have 24/7 access to it.

Disadvantages are battery charging Dec-Feb when the solar panel isn't enough, travelling to/from the storage site in a car, not being able to just leap in the MH and go somewhere, and the extra cost.

Advantages are we can use the drive for our car which is regularly loaded and reloaded, the lounge is lighter during the day, it's not an eyesore for the neighbours, and it's much safer from theft in storage.

 

[TheWM]

so another question,

say there two simular propertys, one with extra parking for m/h one without

how much extra would you be prepared to pay for the property with could house all your cars and your motorhome

£50k.

Off street parking in London is approx worth £20k.

I have the MH and 4 cars - one of which is now living with a friend so the MH can live on the drive.

Will have to start thinning the fleet out in due course but we want to move out of London at some point to buy a place with land and plenty of storage. At which point I will need to replenish the fleet.

 

[Gandhi]

On some properties there is a covenant that stops you from parking motorhomes on the drive or garden. Don't know how this gets enforced, presumably only needs a neighbour to complain and then you have to remove the vehicle.

Heads up here if anyone gets 'the letter' from the freeholders of the land regarding any covenant.

Ours had it. Neighbours complained. I bought the freehold for £1200. Neighbour's were silenced.

I also mentioned it in passing to a legal eagle friend of mine about the covenant and he said it was one of the costliest procedures in UK law to enforce especially when you advise that you use the MH as a vehicle to commute to work in.

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