Sell it or scrap it? The four questions that actually decide

Most people who end up asking this have inherited a caravan rather than chosen one. A parent's tourer sat behind the garage for a decade, or a static came with a pitch nobody in the family wants to keep paying for. The caravan itself isn't the hard part. Deciding whether to sell it or scrap it, and not knowing which, is what stalls people for months. There's no need to guess. Four questions, answered honestly and in order, tell you which one your caravan actually is.

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Question one: can it be towed?

This is the question everything else depends on, including how we'd price it if it comes to that. Check the tyres first: perished rubber or anything more than about five years old fails this on its own, tread depth or not. Check the chassis for rot, especially near the coupling and the axle, and check the axle itself turns freely rather than being seized solid. Then check the floor and walls from the inside. A floor that flexes underfoot or wall panels that have started to separate from the frame mean the caravan isn't safe to move under tow, whatever the tyres look like.

If it fails any of those, it's a non-towable job from here, which changes both who'd buy it and what removal costs.

Question two: what does damp actually mean for the value?

Every "get it serviced first" thread on the forums stops short of the part that matters: what happens once the damp check comes back bad. Press the wall panels near the windows and roof lights with your thumb. Soft or spongy panels mean water's already in, and once it is, the conversation about selling is usually over before it starts. Private buyers walk the moment they feel it give, and dealers won't take on a damp repair bill on a caravan that's already old. A caravan can be the right age, the right brand and towable, and still be worth next to nothing once the damp reading comes back wrong. It's the single biggest factor in this whole decision, bigger than age.

Question three: is there a real market for it?

Be fair to the caravan here. There genuinely is a market for tidy older tourers. Plenty of thirty-year-old vans are still out there being towed to the coast every summer by an owner who bought one cheap and kept on top of it. If yours is dry, towable, a recognisable brand and reasonably presented, a private buyer is a realistic outcome, not a long shot.

There's one narrow exception worth knowing about too. A caravan from roughly 2000 onwards, in genuinely excellent condition with no more than minor damp, occasionally still has enough value in it that we're able to make an offer ourselves. It's the exception, never the starting assumption, and it's only confirmed once we've seen photos.

For most caravans past a certain age, condition, or both, none of that applies, and that's where question four comes in.

Question four: if it's scrap, what does that actually cost?

Once towability, damp and the market have ruled out a realistic sale, the number that matters is what removal costs, not what a sale might have brought.

A towable tourer is the cheapest of the three, since it leaves in one piece. A non-towable tourer costs more because the breaking happens where it stands, and the skip for the waste isn't included in that price, so you'd need to arrange your own, usually 6 to 8 yards. A static is the biggest job, since the whole thing is broken up and cleared from the pitch it's standing on, though the price comes down a little if the wood can be burned on site. Every figure here is what you pay us, not the other way round: a caravan is mostly bonded panels and timber framing, not a material with resale value once it's stripped down, so the cost reflects the hours it takes to take one apart safely.

None of it is guesswork on our side either. Send clear photos of the damage and the caravan as it actually is, the same photos you'd have used for a sale listing, and you'll have a fixed quote back within 24 hours, rather than waiting on someone to drive out and look at it in person. We're heavily booked most of the year, so once a quote lands, it's worth booking quickly rather than sitting on it.

The cost of not deciding

Every month spent going back and forth is a month the caravan keeps costing something, whether that's pitch fees on a static, insurance you're still paying on a tourer that hasn't moved, or just the space on a drive you'd rather have back. We've written separately about what an unused caravan costs you while you're deciding, and the number tends to surprise people. Working through the four questions above and getting a straight answer, sell or scrap, almost always costs less than another season of not deciding either way.

What about an inherited static?

If what you're actually dealing with is a static that's come to you through a bereavement rather than a tourer on the drive, the questions above still apply, but there's a layer of park paperwork on top that a tourer doesn't have. Our guide to inheriting a static caravan covers that side of it separately, since it's a different kind of problem to the one this page is answering.

The short version

Check whether it can be towed. Check what the damp is really telling you. Be honest about whether a private buyer would actually want it as it stands. If the answer to all three is genuinely yes, list it and give the sale a proper go. If it isn't, stop treating "try to sell it first" as the only responsible option, because for a caravan that's failed those checks it just means months of nothing happening while the costs keep running. Get a caravan scrapping quote and you'll know within a day which one your caravan actually is, or read more on caravan disposal if you're still weighing it up.