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Mobile Home Park Tenant Rights

Millions of American families are at risk of unfair eviction because they are tenants in mobile home parks.
About 19 million Americans live in more than seven million mobile homes as primary residences. An additional million mobile homes are owned for seasonal or recreational use. In the 1990s, about one-sixth of all new homeowners bought mobile homes—they now comprise 7.6 percent of the housing stock in America.1 About 32 percent of mobile homes are located in mobile home parks where customers own the homes but rent the land.2 Renters in a mobile home park are placed in a precarious position. Like apartment renters, they may be subjected to unaffordable rent hikes or unreasonable landlord-imposed rules, or can even be evicted without cause. But unlike apartment renters, mobile home park tenants have their biggest investment—their homes—at stake.
Mobile homes are not particularly mobile.
Federal law refers to mobile homes as “manufactured housing units,” in part because once affixed to a concrete slab foundation they are hardly mobile, and because housing advocates prefer to use that term. These homes are produced in factories in accordance with a set of construction standards administered by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some are “single-wide” and look like trailers, while others are multi-section units that are designed to look more like traditional houses with pitched roofs and covered porches. Although mobile homes are built on permanent chassis and attached to axles and wheels, they are rarely moved after they are placed on a foundation. Any mobile home can be damaged when it is moved off its original foundation, but older mobile homes are often destroyed by the process. In any case, moving a mobile home to another site can cost $5,000 to $10,000.3
The immobility makes eviction from a mobile home park devastating to tenants.
In most states, mobile home park tenants are “tenants at will” and can be thrown out for any reason. Because it can be tremendously difficult or impossible for tenants to relocate their homes, landlords wield extraordinary power over their renters. Tenants often have to tolerate rents, fees and living conditions that average apartment dwellers wouldn’t abide—substantially increased costs, arbitrary rules, restrictions on visitors, and even kickback arrangements. A tenant whose home is too old to move is at the mercy of his or her landlord.
Mobile home park owners often sell their land to developers, forcing all tenants to leave.
Parks that opened decades ago on the outskirts of urban areas have now become valuable real estate. Speculators are snapping up the land for condominiums, shopping centers, and housing developments. Only six states (CT, FL, MA, MN, NJ, RI) give tenants any right of first refusal before a mobile home park is to converted to a different use. Five states (CA, NH, NV, OR, VT) require the park to give the tenants advance notice and to negotiate in good faith with them if they make a purchase offer. Even many of these laws have major loopholes.4
The elderly and poor are particularly vulnerable to eviction or closure.
The elderly and poor, often unable to afford traditional housing, comprise a disproportionate share of mobile home residents. The cost of a mobile home is about one-third less per square foot than a conventional home.5 In 2001, the average price of a new conventional home was $164,217 not counting the land—the average mobile home cost $48,800.6 That same year, the median household income of mobile home park tenants was only $25,000. About 43 percent of mobile homes that are used as primary residences are occupied by people who are at least 50 years old.7
States have stepped in to provide legal rights to mobile home park tenants.
Twenty-one states (AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, ID, MD, MA, MN, NV, NH, NJ, NM, ND, SC, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI) require a written lease between mobile home park landlords and tenants. Thirty-two states (AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, ID, IL, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OH, PA, RI, SC, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI) prohibit evictions unless good cause is shown. But many of these laws could be substantially strengthened. And unfortunately, 40 percent of all the mobile homes in the United States are located in the 14 states (AL, AK, GA, HI, KY, LA, MS, MO, NC, OK, SD, TN, TX, WY) that do not offer these or any similar legal protections for mobile home park tenants.
The National Consumer Law Center and AARP have developed a model state statute covering a range of mobile home issues.8
Part of the model legislation addressing tenant rights is presented as the Manufactured Housing Community Tenant Protection Act, which:
  • Prohibits evictions unless good cause is shown.
  • Provides that evictions must be accomplished by court order.
  • Creates a process for tenants to be notified if the mobile home park is to be sold or converted to another use.
  • Creates a process whereby a tenants association has a right of first refusal to buy the mobile home park rather than see it sold or converted to another use.

This policy brief relies in large part on information from the National Consumer Law Center and AARP.

Endnotes
  1. Kevin Krajick, “Home Sweet (Manufactured) Home,” Ford Foundation Report, Spring 2003.
  2. Carolyn Carter et al., “Manufactured Housing Community Tenants: Shifting the Balance of Power,” National Consumer Law Center and AARP, 2004.
  3. “Manufactured Housing Community Tenants.”
  4. David Buchholz, “‘Mobile’ Homes No More: Policy Innovations in Manufactured Housing,” Housing Facts and Findings, Fannie Mae Foundation, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2005.
  5. National Consumer Law Center, “Home on Wheels: Helping Mobile Home Owners Stay Put,” 2003.
  6. “Home Sweet (Manufactured) Home.”
  7. “Manufactured Housing Community Tenants.”
  8. Note that although AARP has a model bill, found in “Manufactured Housing Community Tenants,” each state AARP chapter sets its own priorities.
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