When the Senate returns from recess next week, the Senate Housing Committee will likely consider two Manufactured Housing bills that will seek to improve the communities through both capital improvements and rent dispute resolution.
Manufactured homes are the double or single wide mobile homes that are placed semi-permanently on plots of land in a community. Think of the Park Place Mobile Home Community in Stanton or the Waterford Estates Mobile Home Park in Bear. Usually, there is a single owner of all the plots of land in a community, and they charge rent for you, an owner of a manufactured home, to place your mobile home on that plot of land.
The House last week passed House Bill 5, but not without some Republican opposition.
House Bill 5 will provide a process whereby, if a community owner proposes a rent increase that exceeds the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers in the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City area (CPI-U), then the Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Authority is mandated to hold a final meeting between the community owner and the affected homeowners, and the homeowners’ association to discuss the reasons for the proposed increase.
This Act allows the following to attend the final meeting: (1) the homeowners’ designee; (2) the homeowner’s attorney; (3) The attorney for the homeowners’ association; (4) A representative from the Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association; and (5) Elected Delaware officials.
Chapter 70 of Delaware Code already provides for a meeting whereby community owners explain to homeowners the reason why a rent increase above the CPI-U is being proposed. If, after that meeting, homeowners still oppose the increase, they may file for arbitration. So House Bill 105 amends the Code to state who may attend that meeting.
Seven Republicans voted no to all that, for reasons passing understanding. Their names are listed below:
| House Bill 5 Sponsors | Yes Votes | No Votes |
| K.Williams, Carson, Baumbach, Brady, K.Johnson, Kowalko, Lambert, Longhurst, Lynn, Mitchell, Morrison, Osienski, Wilson-Anton | House Passed 34-7. Baumbach, Bennett, Bentz, Bolden, Brady, Bush, Carson, Chukwuocha, Cooke, D.Short, Dorsey Walker, Dukes, Griffith, Heffernan, Hensley, K.Johnson, K.Williams, Kowalko, Lambert, Longhurst, Lynn, Matthews, M.Smith, Minor-Brown, Mitchell, Morrison, Osienski, Ramone, S.Moore, Schwartzkopf, Shupe, Wilson-Anton, Yearick | Briggs King, Collins, Gray, Morris, Postles, Spiegelman, Vanderwende |
| Walsh, Ennis, Lawson, Pinkney, Sokola | ||
| Current Status — | Senate Housing 4/21/21 |
The second bill is Senate Bill 110. This bill clarifies when a manufactured home community owner can recover the cost of a capital improvement from the homeowners in the community and makes the amount the community owner collects a capital improvement assessment fee that ends when the cost of the capital improvement is recovered, instead of a permanent rent increase.
A homeowner or homeowner association may dispute a capital improvement assessment fee under the existing rent increase dispute resolution process.
This Act also repeals the definition of “market rent” because that term is not a factor considered for justifying a rent increase under current law.
This Act also clarifies when a capital improvement assessment fee or rent increase takes effect.
| Senate Bill 110 Sponsors | Yes Votes | No Votes |
| Ennis, Walsh, Wilson | ||
| Kowalko, Carson, K.Williams, Lynn, Wilson-Anton | ||
| Current Status — Senate Housing 4/14/21 |
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