The Advertising Standards Authority has banned any further publication of an advertisement for holiday homes that made them appear to be residential properties buyers could live in year-round.
A national press ad for the Bendochy Park development, seen on April 15 this year, stated that Heritage Park Estates had a new development of 43 bespoke lodges. The advertisement promoted the private plots, individual driveways and the fact that the park in question was open “365 days a year”.
However, a complainant to the authority stated that Bendochy Park was a holiday scheme and not a residential development, and challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that the properties could be used as a main residence.
Heritage Park Estates Ltd - trading as Bendochy Park - admitted that there might have been issues with the wording and confirmed that the lodges available for purchase at the park could not be used as sole residences and were intended for holiday use only.
The firm said it thought repeated use of the word “lodge” and the absence of the word “residential” would make it clear that this ad was for holiday homes.
It added that all paperwork and contracts relating to a potential purchase of a lodge clearly stated that they were for holiday use only, and required that the purchaser provided them with their main residence address.
However, the ASA says that because the ad included a prominent headline of “Your Dream Home Built Your Way”, several references to “homes” and a prominent mention of “Open 365 Days A Year”, it considered that consumers would understand from the ad that the units available could be used as a main residence.
An ASA statement says: “Because consumers were likely to understand from the ad that the units advertised could be used as main residences when that was not the case, we concluded that the ad was misleading … The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Heritage Park Estates Ltd to ensure that they did not state or imply that their holiday units could be used for main residential purposes, if that was not the case.”
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This sort of thing happens all too often, and most of the sales pitch is never in writing leaving unsuspecting buyers with nowhere to turn, the local councils must surely shoulder much of the blame as they accept council tax without questioning whether a park has a residential licence, many have bought on parks with only holiday licences and registered to pay council tax and no questions were asked by councils, this is surely wrong and councils need to be held to account, lots of these so called residents have got their residency by stealth and it needs to be put right and soon.
This sort of thing happens all too often, and most of the sales pitch is never in writing leaving unsuspecting buyers with nowhere to turn, the local councils must surely shoulder much of the blame as they accept council tax without questioning whether a park has a residential licence, many have bought on parks with only holiday licences and registered to pay council tax and no questions were asked by councils, this is surely wrong and councils need to be held to account, lots of these so called residents have got their residency by stealth and it needs to be put right and soon.
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