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I'm thinking of buying a campervan but as they are a bit expensive and it will only be used about 6 weeks a year I thought I might hire it out to help cover the costs. Has any backroomer experience of this sort of thing? The main problem I can think of is insurance.
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It'd be wise to have the gas and mains electrics systems checked and certified each year, too.
I think Adrian Flux can do the insurance cover you need, but you may find that the cost is so high that you'd have to rent it out for an improbably high number of weeks to break even.
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People rarely look after the property of others in the same way they do their own.
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Or just hire a camper van for the 6 weeks you need one?
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I think I would second the comments about the fact that people renting it will not really look after it. Even if you have a reasonable form of contract drawn up (you may need legal advice for this or alternatively doubtless you could purchase one online), you could still spend a lot of time pursuing people for repairs, which they deny.
my wife and I run a Guest House and regularly, there is damage to the room (lampshades, clock radios, curtain poles pulled off walls, walls gouged and marked, vomit on floor - yes we have seen it all). No-one ever admits to anything and we just view it as a cost of business. I keep a storeroom of spares and I quite often spend the morning on repairs.
You would have to feel that you are making a reasonable amount to compensate for the hassle. You would also have to factor in a fairly intensive valet when the vehicle is returned?
You might also need some kind of liability insurance if someone is injured in an accident and they feel the vehicle was not fully safe - would a MOT certificate be enough?
I think this is the sort of income idea, which may be worthwhile on a larger scale but is probably not justified for one vehicle part-time, especially when you will use it yourself.
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Zilok is a website that allows people to hire out their stuff, a sort of eBay for rental (featuerd in the Sunday Telegraph the other week where somebody hired a FONDUE set!). Personally I would be terrified of the liability issues: what if your power drill injures somebody? You could perhaps advertise on there. At least the rewards would be likely to be great enough to justify the insurance costs with a camper van.
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I think the main problem the OP might have is finding enough customers, and here's the crucial bit, prepared to pay a decent price, to use the camper van.
Happily, I've no financial need to hire out the static in leafy North Yorkshire.
Experience of other owners suggests you may find plenty of people happy to stay there, but only at 'mates rates'.
Then there's wear and tear.
Camper vans I've seen have similar, if not lighter weight, fixtures and fittings to those in my caravan.
None of it is quite as robust as the things in your house, and it needs the sort of care and sympathetic light use only an owner can give.
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If being able to afford it means hiring it out, then forget it.
If you have enough mates you trust not to trash it at 80 mph, who pay you cash (but needing you to have any driver cover), and you get a few weeks a year hire from it, then fine.
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>>(but needing you to have any driver cover) >>
I think you will need hire or reward insurance, remember insurance companies will use even a minor tecnicality to refuse payment, mates and cash payments wont fool them for long.
As suggested above, probably cheaper to hire one when you need it, certainly less hassle.
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