Hideaway holiday park nightmare leaves couple with devastating £150,000 loss

A couple who believed they made a "shrewd investment" lost their life savings after the park they pumped money into went into liquidation.

The anonymous pair from Lincoln said they made what they thought was a smart decision to in a lodge at Dunson Fens The Hideaway holiday park. The park, which lies around ten miles outside Lincoln in Southrey, was advertising for investors in 2020, and they were contacted by Liv Lodges, who offered a guaranteed annual rental return of eight per cent. They took the opportunity a year later, having recently downsized to , and were relying on their life savings to make ends meet, but were devastated when the firm responsible for the project folded.

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LL Lincoln LTD, which used Liv Lodges as a trading name, collapsed four years after the couple had started receiving much-needed £1,000 monthly payments, leaving them both devastated and in "unimaginable" stress.

They told : "The stress is unimaginable, we felt like we had made a shrewd investment but to have it taken away is soul-destroying." The couple first visited the site in December 2020, and watched the lodges being installed while meeting with wo directors, one of whom claimed to be a former pro footballer who had bought several lodges of his own.

He claimed other footballers had also invested, but the couple did their due diligence to ensure "everything was agreed and legally binding".

One of the two, a 50-year-old who has now retrained as an engineer, said he pored over contracts with legal representatives and made a series of amendments before they were signed. They said: "We wanted to make sure everything was agreed and legally binding.

"I spent hours scrutinising contracts with our solicitors, making lots of amendments to make sure everything was above board, spending thousands in legal fees.

"I trawled the internet for information regarding the owner of Dunston Fens Holiday Park and the directors of the LL companies." The two were eventually "convinced the company was structurally sound" and went ahead with a £149,990 purchse in April 2021 despite some remaining "nagging doubts".

The lodge provided a monthly income for three and a half years, but in 2024 the payments stopped and a new park management company was then brought in. LL Lincoln Ltd dissolved months later, and the couple claim they "had no other options" but to sign up with the new management company.

One of the pair said: "As far as we understand things, nobody managed to sell their unit back to the park for the promised 105 per cent."

The first quarter of 2025 the lodge had a 90 per cent occupancy rate and income of £8.708, but after fees were taken the couple say they were left with £1,394. They said: "We then received a letter from another solicitors demanding that we pay the site fees that were in arrears, which was a total amount of £6,600."

With site fees of £550 a month, they lost £256 in the first quarter. The two now feel they can't sell the lodge as it has become "an unattractive proposition" for potential buyers. They explained: "We have basically lost the full £150,000. We are not making money from rental and instead have these ongoing costs.

"This has devastated us to the point where my partner has become ill with anxiety and stress. Our savings have gone." They continued: "The future we have tried our best to safeguard is in tatters.

"Even now we are facing a solicitor's demand for £6600 in overdue ground rent, which we were told would be paid by the new management company and just can't afford. To not pay it means we forfeit the lodge" He added: "So families are having their holidays in our lodge, which we are more or less paying for."

The couple have now contacted Holiday Park Advice Centre, part of European Consumer Claims, which is fighting to get their money back.