Advise needed …told to move from mooring

[Caz]

We have lived on a small marina for 5 years . We were told by the owners we have to move in 3 weeks to their larger, noisy,sister site which none of us want to do ..we have asked for the reason and not been told …how do we stand ? where do we ask ?  How does the protection from eviction act …new bill 6th June 2026  help ….thank you for any help 

[Rob-M]

Are you officially residential or living full time on a leisure mooring...?  Does the eviction act cover boats or just houses...?

[Caz]

We live full time on our boat although we don’t pay council tax …yes the new bill covers boats 

[Cheese]

Check what your mooring contract (or any other paperwork) says.

 

If you don't have official residential status you rights are very limited. The recent Renters Right Act doesn't apply to boats. But your paperwork might say e.g. that they have to give you 3 months rather than 3 weeks notice.

[Arthur Marshall]

Fairly sure it won't apply. It changed pre-existing assured shorthold tenancies to assured periodic tenancies (APT) – or a ‘rolling’ tenancy. If you didn't have the former, you won't have the protection of the latter. There's no indication it applies to boats, and certainly won't if it isn't a legal residential mooring where you (or someonel) pay council tax on that specific spot.

 

1 minute ago, Cheese said:

Check what your mooring contract (or any other paperwork) says.

 

If you don't have official residential status you rights are very limited. The recent Renters Right Act doesn't apply to boats. But your paperwork might say e.g. that they have to give you 3 months rather than 3 weeks notice.

Even that is rather moot if they are offering a berth on another site. You can't claim to being made homeless because your boat is your home, not the marina.

There was a bloke in Manchester being kicked out after gentrification of his marina and was chaining his boat to the railings a year or two ago - he came here for a while. Never found out what happened there...

[GUMPY]

You have no rights even on a residential mooring, better learn to live with it.

 

[Lady M]

Plenty of mooring sites on the system, you could always decide to give notice and go elsewhere.  Many mooring agreements include a right to move boats about.

[MtB]

3 hours ago, Caz said:

How does the protection from eviction act …new bill 6th June 2026  help ….thank you for any help 

 

I suspect you have it wrong. The "Protection From Eviction Act" was passed in 1977 and does not apply to boats. 

 

Google seems not know about a new act of the same name passed in June 2026. Can you supply details of it please? E.g. a link to the new act on the government website? 

 

Are you perhaps thinking of the "Rights of Boat Dwellers Bill" recently introduced in the House oOf Lords by Baroness Bakewell? It is not an act of parliament and seems unlikely ever to be. 

 

 

 

 

[Rob-M]

Perhaps the OP was thinking of the new Renters Rights Act which was introduced earlier this year and abolished no fault evictions.

[Alan de Enfield]

Another one "living the dream" and who believed the U-tube hype rather than doing her due diligence.

 

 

You have no security of tenure, & you have  no rights so suggest you either accept their offer or move elsewhere - you don't want to become that boater with the reputaion of causing problems and getting blacklisted for every marina.

[MtB]

42 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

Perhaps the OP was thinking of the new Renters Rights Act which was introduced earlier this year and abolished no fault evictions.

 

As per the Protection From Eviction Act, The Renters' Rights Act doesn't apply to boats. 

 

 

[Llamedos]

6 hours ago, Caz said:

We live full time on our boat although we don’t pay council tax.

Then you can't have your cake and eat it. 

[Arthur Marshall]

34 minutes ago, Llamedos said:

Then you can't have your cake and eat it. 

I understand that there are residential moorings where the council tax is paid by the marina, and included in the boaters mooring fee. So the question is still whether the current mooring is registered as residential, and whether the new rent rules apply (which is unlikely as per MtB who tends to know about these things).

There's also the point that the landlord obviously owns two marinas and is offering space in the other one, and whether being moved from one berth to another by the same landlord counts as eviction. Marina terms often specify that berths can be shifted.

Best option would seem to be to take up the offer and if you really don't like it, look for somewhere else.

[MtB]

22 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I understand that there are residential moorings where the council tax is paid by the marina, and included in the boaters mooring fee. So the question is still whether the current mooring is registered as residential, and whether the new rent rules apply (which is unlikely as per MtB who tends to know about these things).

There's also the point that the landlord obviously owns two marinas and is offering space in the other one, and whether being moved from one berth to another by the same landlord counts as eviction. Marina terms often specify that berths can be shifted.

Best option would seem to be to take up the offer and if you really don't like it, look for somewhere else.

 

Not being shifted to a different mooring space from time to time is one of the tests for liability for individually-charged Council Tax, AIUI, so the OP being moved just *might* be being done for their benefit! So they don't become liable for Band A Council Tax. 

 

Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Caz]

I personally had no choice but to live on a boat due to a relationship breakdown and a boat was all I could afford ..so I never thought I was living the dream . Boat life was never MY dream 

there is a NEW bill passed on 6th June 2026 regarding boats so google/zrmRUorFDI3mqH1YQ.    Recognise the rights of boat dwellers  

As for not paying council tax . I pay moorings fees , have a 12 month rolling contract . The fact that the council doesn’t collect tax individually is not something I have control over 

I asked a question for advise not to be slagged off 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

2 hours ago, Caz said:

I personally had no choice but to live on a boat due to a relationship breakdown and a boat was all I could afford ..so I never thought I was living the dream . Boat life was never MY dream 

there is a NEW bill passed on 6th June 2026 regarding boats so google/zrmRUorFDI3mqH1YQ.    Recognise the rights of boat dwellers  

As for not paying council tax . I pay moorings fees , have a 12 month rolling contract . The fact that the council doesn’t collect tax individually is not something I have control over 

I asked a question for advise not to be slagged off 

Sorry to hear about your situation. For some of us, being on a boat is living the dream, but for others it is a situation they are in through circumstances and not what they want. 

The Rights of Boat Dwellers Bill you are refering to is a private member's bill that was started in the House of Lords. It has had it's first snd second stage in the Lords and will go to the House of Commons after the committee stage. It is a bill and not yet an Act, with royal assent, so not an active law. It is unlikely to become law and will probably be defeated, or run out of parliamentary time before it can be voted on at some point. It's the fate of most private member's bills unfortunately. It can't help you now and probably never will.  

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4141 shows where it is at and the long, rocky road to possible royal assent. 

 

The mooring owner being able to move you is a right that owners have. I was once on a Canal River Trust run mooring with full residential permission and paying band A council tax. This was about as official and with as many legal rights as it comes in the UK for boat mooring. My mooring contract still gave them the right to move me. They only exercised it once, when the pound was being drained for lock gate work nearby, but it was there. I could have ended up at another mooring in the area at any time. 

 

People pointing out the realities of a situation is not slagging off  though it can seem that way. As a boat dweller, you are at the mercy of the mooring owner. Since your boat can move, it is not considered an imposition to move you, despite the inconvenience and problems it can cause to your life. That's the way it is with the current legal status. 

[Caz]

Thank you much appreciated 

[MtB]

I think the questions about whether the OP pays Council Tax were not 'slagging off', they were an attempt to establish if the OP has a full status residential mooring or a leisure status mooring. 

 

I see the question has now been answered so they given they are not being billed for CT, they are probably on a leisure mooring. 

 

 

[Tam & Di]

18 hours ago, Caz said:

We were told by the owners we have to move in 3 weeks to their larger, noisy,sister site which none of us want to do

 

As MtB has said, the current "Rights of Boat Dwellers Bill" is simply that - a Bill under discussion that may or more likely may not eventually become an Act.

I'd be very surpised if your mooring terms don't say that you might be moved to a different berth. You could always simply refuse to go - if the mooring operator moves your boat himself he could be in a difficult position if anything happened to it, so he might get an eviction order instead. Have you got the time/energy/bravado or stupidity to do that? Refusal to move effectively makes you a squatter on his property.

 

I'm sure it's not what you want to hear, but the brutal truth is that if you don't want to go to his other marina you need to find a different mooring elsewhere.

Edited July 21 by Tam & Di

[MrsM]

3 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Sorry to hear about your situation. For some of us, being on a boat is living the dream, but for others it is a situation they are in through circumstances and not what they want. 

The Rights of Boat Dwellers Bill you are refering to is a private member's bill that was started in the House of Lords. It has had it's first snd second stage in the Lords and will go to the House of Commons after the committee stage. It is a bill and not yet an Act, with royal assent, so not an active law. It is unlikely to become law and will probably be defeated, or run out of parliamentary time before it can be voted on at some point. It's the fate of most private member's bills unfortunately. It can't help you now and probably never will.  

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4141 shows where it is at and the long, rocky road to possible royal assent. 

Really well explained. Even when a bill receives royal assent and becomes an Act of Parliament it can take many months before it becomes 'live'. With my Campaign for Pubs hat on we have been campaigning for a community right to buy for years (the current right to bid is as much use as a chocolate teapot). The English Devolution and Community Empowerment bill became an Act in April and yet it is unlikely to benefit communities before the end of the year at the earliest. The ministers cannot even give a rough timescale for this. 

Wishing you all the best @Caz. Looking on the bright side, you are lucky that your mooring provider has let you live aboard under the radar so far and if you find yourself living among new neighbours you don't really like you can move your home. Much easier than dealing with similar in bricks and mortar. You might even end up somewhere you enjoy even more!

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

Maybe you need to question the owner more, maybe he’s planning new pontoons, replacing old, fitting new services, that would be easier to do if there weren’t boats to work around.

 Maybe see if any planning applications have been filed with the local council.

 At the end of the day it’s their Marina and your boat is just a floating tenant, depending on what you have signed for with the mooring agreement will dictate what rights you have ish. Have you got one and did you read it, as many haven’t and don’t.

 

[MtB]

20 minutes ago, BoatingLifeUpNorth2 said:

Maybe you need to question the owner more, maybe he’s planning new pontoons, replacing old, fitting new services, that would be easier to do if there weren’t boats to work around.

 

This crossed my mind too, and we don't know if it is only the OP being asked to move or every boat in the marina. 

 

But either way the OP needs to be careful not to get a reputation for rocking the boat. If all the other boats have agreed to move but not the OP, they won't be endearing themselves to the management for being difficult about it. If they are the only boat being asked to move, one begins to wonder why. Maybe they have already cheesed off the management ever so slightly, perhaps without actually realising.

 

 

 

 

[Tam & Di]

4 minutes ago, MtB said:

This crossed my mind too, and we don't know if it is only the OP being asked to move or every boat in the marina.

 

The OP does say "which none of us want to do ..we have asked for the reason and not been told

[MtB]

7 minutes ago, Tam & Di said:

 

The OP does say "which none of us want to do ..we have asked for the reason and not been told

 

Thanks. I took that to mean several people living on this boat but yes, it could just as well mean all the boats in the marina.

 

So at least the OP is not being singled out. That's good. But I really don't think there is any mileage to be had from resisting the marina owner's request. I suspect the marina owner's reason for clearing out the marina of boats would not go down well with the boaters, hence their silence about it. 

 

 

 

 

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

So at least the OP is not being singled out. That's good. But I really don't think there is any mileage to be had from resisting the marina owner's request. I suspect the marina owner's reason for clearing out the marina of boats would not go down well with the boaters, hence their silence about it. 

And would the Marina want a situation of “the tail wagging the dog”

 The OP needs to read the mooring agreement and find out why it’s happening. 
 As people have said if they don’t agree with the Marina’s actions and are totally unsatisfied with their answers and new moorings they could always move their boat to a better Marina.