A COUPLE have been left “gobsmacked” after losing £45,000 in two years on their “dream” caravan home.
The pair snapped up the seaside property as they planned a golden retirement, but their future was thrown into chaos after a devastating diagnosis.
4
4
Andrew and Sue Dawson, from Leeds, bought themselves a £62,400 caravan at the Parkdean’s Skipsea Sands holiday park in East Yorkshire.
They had dreamed of enjoying the van as a coastal holiday home, surrounded by their children and grandchildren.
However, those plans were shattered in February, when Mr Dawson was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
After taking in the tragic news, the family decided it would be best to sell the three-bedroom van as they organised their affairs.
But they were handed yet more misery when the sales team at Skipsea Sands told them that the van was now only worth £17,000.
That’s a depreciation of more than £45,000 since they bought it in 2022.
Mr Dawson told BBC News: “We were gobsmacked.
“No one ever told us we’d face that level of depreciation.
“The salesman sold us the dream, but didn’t sell us the reality.”
Parkdean’s website does state that “holiday homes depreciate in value with age” but Mr Dawson claimed that a salesperson told him at the time that the vans “pretty much hold their value”.
He was certainly not expecting such a significant price drop in so short a time.
The distressed grandad added: “The amount of money we’ve lost and the way we’ve been treated, in my opinion, is very underhanded and lacking in transparency.
“We feel they let us down very badly.”
Even worse, the family claim that on the day of the sale, Parkdean’s slashed the price by a further £1,000.
The firm has since been in touch to offer Mr Dawson that sum back in an attempt to settle the row, the report claims.
A company spokesperson told the BBC that it is “aware of and sympathetic to Andrew’s situation.”
They added that they have reached out to the family to “agree a suitable offer.”
4
4
