What happens to your pitch fee while you disagree
A notice proposing a new pitch fee does not change what you owe on its own. In England, paragraph 17(4) of Schedule 1 Chapter 2 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 states that where you do not agree the new figure, you keep paying the current pitch fee until it is agreed between you and the site owner, or until the tribunal decides what the figure should be.
Disagreeing is not the same as withholding payment. The rule fixes the amount: the current pitch fee remains payable in full, and the proposed increase has no effect until one of those two things happens.
Why this is worth knowing before you respond to the notice
A resident who does not know about paragraph 17(4) can feel pressure to start paying the higher figure simply because a letter has arrived with a date on it. The provision is what gives you room to question the figure, or to take advice on it, without falling behind on what you owe in the meantime.
How to apply to the tribunal
Either you or the site owner can apply to the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber to have a disputed pitch fee decided. The application is not reserved to the resident, and either side can start it once agreement has broken down.
What it costs
- In England, the application is made on Form PH9 and carries a fee of £23.
- In Wales, the same application is made on Form MH15, and there is no fee to pay.
The forms themselves, and the deadlines for submitting them, are set out in full by the Leasehold Advisory Service's guide to pitch fee reviews, which is free to use and funded by government.
Once a determination has been made, the next question is how to read it. The page on how to read a tribunal decision explains what a case reference means and where to find the document itself.
Seven tribunal determinations, compared
Each row is one tribunal deciding one set of facts: the fee proposed, the fee determined, and why. Read them side by side to see how the CPI and RPI presumptions have held up or given way on different parks.
| Case and site | Review date | Proposed vs determined | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAM/22UH/PHI/2023/0140 — Royal Dunton Court, Brentwood | 5 July 2024 | 13.4% RPI proposed, cut to 9.4% | Park amenity had deteriorated |
| MAN/00FF/PHI/2023/00128 — Mount Pleasant Park, YorkReference covers related applications heard together | 20 December 2023 | 14.2% RPI proposed, limited to 12% | Reduced under the paragraph 18(1) factors |
| MAN/00EQ/PHI/2023/0092 — Croft Park, Mobberley | 26 February 2024 | 14.2% RPI proposed, cut to 9.2% — £217.05 of £227 | Permanent loss of open land and the pond |
| CHI/46UC/PHI/2023/0563 — Bungalow Park, Wiltshire | 16 September 2024 | Increase refused — fee held at £164.51 a month | Subsiding base was the owner's responsibility |
| CAM/38UC/PHI/2023/0094 — St Nicholas' Park, Oxford | 18 October 2024 | CPI 4.6% applied — £186.63 to £195.21 a month | Full CPI presumption allowed |
| BIR/17UD/PHC/2024/0039 to 0041 — Riverdale Park, Staveley | 7 March 2025 | 4% CPI increase allowed in full | No reduction in amenity or services found |
| CHI/00HC/PHI/2023/0101 — Downside Park, BristolSpecific decision date not published here | Decided 2023 | RPI increase allowed in full — £140.86 to £161.92 a month | Procedure followed, no deterioration argued |
These seven determinations are published on GOV.UK, dated as shown. No proportion of outcomes across all pitch fee determinations has been counted here, so this table says nothing about how often an increase is allowed in full, allowed in part or refused generally.
What a determination shows, and what it does not
A tribunal determination is a decision on one site, one pitch fee notice, one set of facts put in front of one panel on one date. It tells you what that panel decided and why, nothing more.
Reading a run of determinations is still worth doing, because it shows you the shape of how a provision gets applied: what persuades a tribunal to reduce a proposed increase, what persuades it to refuse one outright, what kind of evidence the site owner has to bring. That is evidence of application, not a forecast.
What it cannot tell you
It cannot tell you what will happen with your own notice. Your site's condition, your written statement, the figures your site owner relies on and the date of your review are all different from the case you are reading, even where the provision cited is the same one. Where two determinations reach different conclusions on similar facts, both are published here as they stand, because that disagreement is itself part of what the record shows.
If you want to see how a determination is laid out and where to retrieve it yourself, the guide on how to read a tribunal decision covers the case reference, the published document and what each part of it means. Where your own situation turns on something a determination cannot settle, the Leasehold Advisory Service gives free, independent, government-funded advice at parkhomes.lease-advice.org.