Changes to Residential Park Home Regulations in Scotland

Changes to Residential Park Home Regulations in Scotland

The Scottish Government has confirmed that parts of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 relating to residential mobile homes will come into force effective from 1 April 2026, following new regulations  Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3) Regulations 2026 laid before Parliament on 2 March 2026.

Key changes include:

• Pitch Fee Increases (Section 61):
  The basis for annual pitch fee increases will shift from the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).
• This applies to review notices issued on or after 1 April 2026.
• Notices issued before 1 April 2026 will still use RPI.
• Additional protections are introduced to prevent site owners from offsetting any loss of income through other means.

The aim of the changes is to ensure that protections relating to pitch fee uprating for owners of residential mobile homes remain fair, appropriate and in line with the development of statistical measures.

• Definition Update (Section 62):
  makes a technical change to modify the meaning of “protected site” in section 5(1) of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 so that it has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Caravans Sites Act 1968. This in effect removes references to gypsy and traveller sites that are no longer needed in consequence of previous changes to the law in regard to these sites. 

A further provision allowing Scottish Ministers to change the inflation index in future via secondary legislation will be introduced in a later set of regulations.

Guidance is being issued by the Scottish Government to residential park owners and managers to support implementation.