Before you sign anything at a park, you are entitled to see a written statement setting out the terms of your agreement. The Mobile Homes Act 1983, section 1(3), requires that statement to reach you at least 28 days before the agreement is made.

The point of the 28 days is time. It gives you a period in which you can read the terms properly, ask questions, and take the document to a solicitor if you want a second opinion.

Where the waiver comes in

Section 1(4) of the same Act allows the proposed occupier to consent in writing to a shorter period. That consent has to come from you, in writing, and it is what turns 28 days into however many the site operator proposes instead.

This is why the right and the waiver need to be read together. The statement alone does not tell you how much time you actually had. What tells you that is whether you were asked to sign a consent form shortening the period, and whether you did.

If you are handed a consent form at a sales desk

A form like this is usually presented as a formality alongside the written statement itself. Before signing it, it is worth asking two questions plainly:

• What date does this consent agree to, in place of the 28 days?
• Have you had the written statement long enough to take it to a solicitor, or are you being asked to give that time up before you have used it?

Neither question delays anything you are entitled to. They simply establish what you are being asked to give up, in the same conversation in which you are being asked to give it up.

A written statement for a park home is not one kind of document. It is built from three layers, and knowing which layer a clause sits in tells you how much it can be changed by agreement and how much it cannot.

The terms you and the site owner have agreed

These are the express terms: the pitch number, the pitch fee at the start of the agreement, the date the agreement began, and any particular arrangement the two of you have settled on for that pitch. They are written down because they were chosen for this agreement, and they can differ from one occupier's statement to the next.

The terms the law puts in regardless

Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Mobile Homes Act 1983 sets out a further set of terms, the implied terms, and these apply to every written statement whether or not the site owner has copied them out. They cover matters such as how a pitch fee review is to be carried out and what each side owes the other for the condition of the pitch and the site.

An implied term does not have to be printed on the page in front of you to apply to you. Where a written statement says nothing on something Part 1 covers, the Part 1 version governs.

The rules for how the implied terms work in practice

Part 2 of Schedule 1 supplements Part 1. It sets out the procedural detail attached to the implied terms, such as how notice under one of them is to be given. Part 1 states what each side is entitled to, and Part 2 states how that entitlement is carried out.

Which one wins if they disagree

An express term cannot be used to take away or reduce what Part 1 gives an occupier. Where a written statement tries to do that, the implied term stands and the express term does not displace it. It is worth checking your pitch fee review clause against this specifically, since that is where the two most often pull against each other.

Schedule 1 is written for England and Wales. Scotland has its own equivalent provisions, and England, Wales or Scotland sets out which version applies to your site.

Whether the Mobile Homes Act 1983 reaches your agreement at all is a separate question from what the written statement should contain. Is This Park Actually Protected? names the two documents to check before relying on anything in Schedule 1.

A consent form handed to you at a sales desk is asking you to give up time the law otherwise gives you. Before you sign it, read the date written on it and work out how many days that leaves between now and the day the agreement starts.

The written statement is meant to reach you a set number of days ahead of that date, so you have time to read it properly and take it to a solicitor if you want one to look it over. The form in front of you is asking you to accept a shorter gap than that. You can agree to it, but it has to be a choice you make in writing, after you understand what you are trading away.

Two questions worth asking out loud

• What date does this consent to, and how many days is that from today?
• Have you had the written statement long enough to read it and show it to a solicitor if you want one?

If you cannot answer either one with confidence, that is a reason to ask for the date to be put back.