This issue of negative RPI over the past year or so has been very useful in supporting the well-known fact that many park owners blatantly ignore the law. What has been of benefit to the park owners for decades has now turned the other way and, put simply, some of them do not like it.
The legislation provides that there is a ‘presumption’ that the pitch fee will increase or decrease by no more than any increase or decrease in the RPI since the last review date. This legislation does not, in my view, expressly put the park owner exclusively in the position of deciding on whether to apply the ‘presumption’ is unilateral. Park owners have accepted the ‘presumption’ when they increased the pitch fees year on year by RPI. In my view there is now, equally, a completely justifiable ‘presumption onus’ on the occupier to apply. This means that the occupier can presume that their pitch fee will fall in line with any particular RPI. A park owner would be faced with the impossible task of persuading a court that the pitch fee should either remain unchanged or increase (as many as they are trying to impose) when the RPI was negative and the occupier, him/herself took it upon themselves to make the appropriate reduction in their payments.
I appreciate that the sums of money will likely be small but, nevertheless, the law is the law and it is in place for all citizens of this country to comply with. Park owners are, irrespective of their views, still subject to the same laws as you