California MHP News

Thu, Feb 29, 2024 – This table of Mobile Home Parks, RV Parks, and Manufactured Home Communities for Sale in California is a work in progress as of Thursday, February, 2024. Data is being updated regularly.

This is a partial listing and covers the period 2021-01-01 to 2024-02-29. This is NOT a complete list of mobile home parks for sale in California. Many sales of mobile home parks are usually done via Pocket Listings (aka Off-Market Listings, Exclusive Listings), they are not marketed via public channels.

Wed, Feb 28, 2024 – Over the past year the Mobile Home Resident Coalition (MHRC) volunteers have been working long hours to protect park residents statewide. Our efforts have not gone unnoticed. Several legislative staff and housing advocates have remarked about how incredible MHRC is – we have such dedicated volunteers with no legislative training, who have been extremely productive as we:

• Study affordability issues.
• Research legislators and the numbers of MH voters in their districts.
• Educate legislators about MH resident needs.
• Write potential legislation.
• Offer resources such as lease assistance for a city-owned MHP, a food program for low-income residents, info on rental assistance.
• Connect with state and national housing advocates to help us all reach our goals.

When we looked at various possible bills affecting renters, we decided to compile our own “WishList” of items we’d like to see in a bill to help mobile home residents statewide. We’ve offered this list to various legislators and housing advocacy groups and are working diligently to make this a reality! For a bill to become law takes education, research, negotiation, and compromise. We’ve compiled our WishList for you to ponder and welcome you to read it.

Tue, Feb 27, 2024 – GSMOL’s This Week at the Capital dated Mon, Feb 26, 2024, shows two major pieces of legislation concerning mobile home parks. We’ve expanded on those and have included a list of Assembly Bills and Senate Bills of interest (Mobile Homes) for the 2024 Legislative Session (2024-01-03 to 2024-08-31).

Note: AB 2778 previously AB 1035.

AB 2778 (Muratsuchi) Mobilehome Parks: Rent Caps

Introduced by Assembly Member Muratsuchi
Thursday, February 15, 2024

An act relating to mobilehomes.

AB 2778, as introduced, Muratsuchi. Mobilehome parks: rent caps.

Existing law, the Mobilehome Residency Law, prescribes various terms and conditions of tenancies in mobilehome parks. Existing law defines “tenancy” for these purposes as the right of a homeowner to use a site within a mobilehome park on which to locate, maintain, and occupy a mobilehome for human habitation, including the use of the services and facilities of the park. Existing law prohibits, with certain exceptions, the management of a mobilehome park from increasing the gross rental rate for a tenancy in a qualified mobilehome park, as defined, more than 3% plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 5%, whichever is lower, of the lowest gross rental rate charged for a tenancy at any time during the 12 months prior to the effective date of the increase, subject to specified conditions.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact the Mobilehome Affordability Act to limit rent increases for mobilehome spaces.

AB 2539 (Connolly) Mobilehome Parks: Sale: Notice: Right of First Refusal

Introduced by Assembly Member Connolly
Tuesday, February 13, 2024

An act to amend Section 798.80 of the Civil Code, relating to mobilehomes.

AB 2539, as introduced, Connolly. Mobilehome parks: sale: notice: right of first refusal.

Existing law, the Mobilehome Residency Law, requires the owner of a mobilehome park who enters into a written listing agreement with a licensed real estate broker for the sale of the mobilehome park or who offers to sell the mobilehome park to any party to provide written notice of the owner’s intention to sell to specified members of a resident organization formed by homeowners for purposes of converting the mobilehome park to condominium or stock cooperative ownership interests and for purchasing the mobilehome park. Existing law requires the owner to provide this notice not less than 30 days nor more than one year before entering into the listing agreement or offering to sell the mobilehome park. Existing law provides various exceptions to this notice requirement.

This bill would require the owner to also provide the above-described notice to all residents of the mobilehome park and the Department of Housing and Community Development not less than 60 days nor more than one year before entering into the listing agreement or offering to sell the mobilehome park. The bill would grant the resident organization a right of first refusal to the mobilehome park and give them six months from the time they receive the above-described notice to make an offer. The bill would require the owner to engage in good faith negotiations with the resident organization if they are interested in purchasing the park and prohibit the owner from negotiating with or accepting an offer from another party until the above-described six month time period has elapsed.

Other 2024 Legislation Concerning California Mobile Home Parks

1. AB 2022 (Addis) Mobilehome Parks: Emergency Preparedness
   An act to amend, repeal, and add Section 18603 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to mobilehome parks.
2. SB 1408 (Roth/Durazo) Mobilehome Parks: Vehicle Removal
   An act to amend Section 798.28.5 of the Civil Code, relating to mobilehome parks.
3. SB 1108 (Bogh) Mobilehome Parks: Notice of Violations
   An act to add Section 18408 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to mobilehome parks.
4. SB 1052 (Seyarto) Mobilehomes
   An act to amend Sections 18803 and 18804 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to mobilehomes.
5. AB 2247 (Wallis) Mobilehomes
   An act to amend Section 18550 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to mobilehomes.
6. AB 3200 (Hoover) Master-Metered Mobilehome Parks and Manufactured Housing Communities: Transfer of Water Systems
   An act to amend Section 2705.5 of, to add the heading to Article 1 (commencing with Section 2716) of Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 1 of, and to add Article 2 (commencing with Section 2716) to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 1 of, the Public Utilities Code, relating to water.

Mon, Feb 26, 2024 – Seniors living in mobile homes across Fullerton may soon be able to qualify for a local rent assistance program after city officials decided to expand who can qualify for the subsidy.

The change comes a couple months after John Saunders announced he intends to convert Rancho La Paz, a senior mobile home park he owns, into an all-age mobile home park – a move that put the existing rent subsidy at risk for low income seniors living there.

On Tuesday, city council members voted 4-0 to expand the program to seniors living at mobile home parks across town regardless of the age designation for the park. Councilman Fred Jung was absent.

The previous program was adopted in 2019 and was specifically for seniors living at senior-only mobile home parks, according to staff.

Tue, Feb 13, 2024 – A California mobile home park owner can move forward with its challenge to a state rent control statute after the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of its lawsuit.

Peace Ranch LLC alleged in a pre-enforcement challenge that Assembly Bill 978—which applies to mobile home parks subject to jurisdiction under two or more incorporated cities—was specifically designed to target it after it tried to raise rents on its Rancho La Paz mobile park property by more than five percent. Judge M. Margaret McKeown, of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, wrote that the case has ‘one unusual wrinkle’…
Bloomberg Law

Justia Opinion Summary
PEACE RANCH, LLC V. BONTA, No. 22-16063 (9th Cir. 2024)

In the case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Peace Ranch LLC challenged the constitutionality of California AB 978, a mobilehome-rent-control statute. Peace Ranch alleged that if it increases mobilehome rents more than AB 978 permits, the California Attorney General would enforce AB 978 against it. However, Peace Ranch also alleged that AB 978 does not apply to its mobilehome park. The Court of Appeals concluded that Peace Ranch had adequately established standing based on a pre-enforcement injury. The court reasoned that Peace Ranch was trapped between complying with a law that it believes does not apply to it or risking enforcement proceedings by raising rents. This dilemma, the court ruled, is the precise predicament that supports pre-enforcement standing. As such, the court reversed the district court's dismissal for lack of standing.

Court Description: Civil Rights/Pre-enforcement Standing. The panel reversed the district court’s order dismissing for lack of standing an amended complaint brought by Peace Ranch LLC seeking to enjoin the enforcement of California AB 978, a mobilehome-rent-control statute.

Thu, Feb 1, 2024 – For the 2024 California Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL), we have rebuilt the entire MRL and RVPOL using data from the California Legislative Information website. Proper legal formatting has been implemented using the format of (a)(1)(A)(i)(I)(ia) i.e., six (6) list levels.

When we setup our first online MRL in 2019, we performed a 1 to 1 cut and paste from the Senate Select Committee PDF version and reformatted in HTML. We did not perform a verification process of the data in the committee’s PDF document as we assumed it was 100% correct. For the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 years, we made updates to the online version based on the PDF published by the Senate Select Committee each year.

We discovered during the 2024 MRL rebuild in HTML, using data from the California Legislative Information website, that there are twenty-three (23) discrepancies in the Senate Select Committee published PDF version. We have documented those discrepancies in this audit and have provided the MRL Amended References along with the CLI (California Legislative Information) Amended References.

From the 2024 MRL Introduction:

Note: Mobilehome Residency Law Protection Program (MRLPP). Beginning July 1, 2021, any mobilehome or manufactured homeowner living in a mobilehome park under a rental agreement may submit a complaint for an alleged violation of the Mobilehome Residency Law. Any mobilehome or manufactured homeowner residing in a permitted mobilehome park is eligible to submit a complaint. Complaints must be submitted to HCD. HCD provides assistance to help resolve and coordinate resolution of the most severe alleged violations of the Mobilehome Residency Law. For questions regarding the MRLPP please call 1-800-952-8356, email MRLComplaint@HCD.CA.gov or visit https://www.HCD.CA.gov/.

For the 2024 edition, Assembly Bill 604 (CIV §798.40) clarifies the scope of AB 1061 (Lee, Chapter 625, Statutes of 2021) to explicitly include residents of all mobilehome parks in each of the protections within the statute. These protections include capping each residents’ water service charges to only their proportional share based on monthly usage plus a reasonable administrative fee, eliminating arbitrary and unfair water “service” charges and fees. AB 1280 (CIV §1103.2) revises the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement that must be provided by a property seller to a potential buyer to include more specific disclosures regarding whether the property falls within current local, or state, high and very high fire hazard severity zones.
Senate Select Committee on Manufactured Home Communities