Manufactured home tenants

As a tenant in a manufactured home park, you have many rights. 

This guide provides an overview of the rights of tenants who occupy manufactured homes year round. It does not apply to seasonal parks often found in resort areas and used for campers and recreational vehicles (RVs).  

The majority of manufactured home park (MHP) tenants own their manufactured homes and rent only the lot within the park where they are sited. If you own your home and rent the lot, you are both a homeowner and a tenant. 

In this guide, we use the following terms:  

Your protections against discrimination 

You are protected from discrimination under federal, state, and local laws.  

Local governments may offer additional protections.   

An MHP owner cannot refuse to lease a manufactured home or a lot in a park to you, refuse to renew your lease, or otherwise discriminate against you because of any of these characteristics. 

Leases  

Your lease is your most significant protection as an MHP tenant. Before moving into an MHP, you as a prospective tenant must be offered, in writing, the opportunity to sign a lease for a minimum of one year. All lease offers, including initial and renewal leases, must include a rider (document) regarding tenant rights. This document must be on a form approved by New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR). 

When you sign a lease, you have certain obligations as a tenant. You agree to:  

• pay your rent in full and on time  
• follow reasonable park rules and obey all federal, state, and local laws and ordinances that affect the health and safety of other residents (RPL section 233(e))  

Tips to protect yourself:  

• Before you sign, carefully read your lease and all riders, including any rules or regulations.  
• Do not rely on oral promises. Make sure that all promises and agreements are written in the lease before you sign it.  
• Consult an attorney if you have any questions about your lease.  

Lease renewal  

Your MHP owner is required to offer you an opportunity to renew your lease for at least 12 months. They must make the offer in writing, no later than 90 days before your existing lease expires.  

If you do not have a lease, your MHP owner must offer you the opportunity to sign a lease for a minimum of one year. They must offer you a lease renewal every year you are in the MHP, on or before October 1.  

If you wish to renew your lease under the offered terms, you must sign and return the offered lease to the MHP owner within 30 days after receiving it. 

MHP rules and regulations

Your MHP owner must give you a copy of all park rules and regulations at the beginning of your occupancy. They must also post the rules and regulations in a conspicuous place on the park grounds. Your MHP owner cannot enforce rules and regulations which are either not posted conspicuously or given to park tenants at the time they move in. They cannot put any condition in your lease that is inconsistent with a park rule or regulation that is in effect at the beginning of the lease. (Real Property Law section 233(e))

Park rules and regulations cannot be unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. They must be applied uniformly to all park residents.

Your MHP owner can change any rule or regulation, but must give you at least 30 days’ advance written notice of the change. If they make a change that is inconsistent with an existing lease provision, they can apply the change only when tenants sign a new lease or to those who do not have a lease. Your MHP owner can only apply changes inconsistent with an existing lease provision upon renewal of the lease.

Rent, fees, charges, and assessments

All of the fees, charges, and assessments, including rent and utility charges, that your MHP owner charges must be reasonably related to actual services delivered. The MHP owner must disclose all these costs to you in writing before you move into the park.

Rent increases

Starting in July 2019, your MHP owner cannot raise your rent more than three percent per year, unless their costs have increased. Rent is defined as meaning all rent, fees, charges, assessments, and utilities.

Your MHP owner is allowed to increase your rent by up to six percent if their expenses increase due to any of the following:

• operating costs
• property taxes
• costs directly related to capital improvements in the park

In general, a rent increase is considered justifiable if it does not exceed your pro-rata share (equal portion) of operating costs and property taxes.

If your MHP owner wishes to increase your rent above six percent:

• The MHP owner must claim a temporary hardship from the court.
• The court must find that there is a temporary hardship and state the factors it based the decision on.
• The court can grant an increase greater than six percent for a maximum of six months.
• The court may require that the MHP owner justify such a rent increase by repairing conditions in the park that threaten the health and safety of MHP tenants.

You as a tenant can challenge a proposed rent increase that would increase your rent above three percent within 90 days of the proposed increase. You must bring a lawsuit in the supreme court where the park is located, seeking a declaratory judgment that the rent increase is unjustifiable. (RPL section 233(b))

Payments of real property tax

Your MHP owner may have to adjust your rent if you have certain tax-related circumstances, including any of the following:

• You pay real property taxes.
• You receive a veteran’s or senior tax exemption.

For more information, visit the page on homeowners’ property taxes at the Department of Taxation and Finance site. (RPL section 233(w))

Security deposits

Your MHP owner likely requires that you give them a security deposit. Your MHP owner can require only a security deposit equivalent to one month’s rent.

They are required by law, regardless of the number of units or lots in their park, to treat your security deposit as a trust fund that belongs to you. Your MHP owner cannot mingle your deposit with their own money.

If your MHP has six or more lots for manufactured homes, your MHP owner must also put all security deposits in New York bank accounts earning interest at the prevailing rate. Whenever your MHP owner puts your security deposit in a bank account, they must:

• inform you, in writing, of the bank’s name and address and the amount of the deposit
• give you the option of being paid the interest on your security deposit each year, having the interest applied to rent, or being paid the interest at the end of your lease (RPL section 233(g)(4))

Receipts for your rent payments

Your MHP owner must provide you with a written receipt when you pay your rent in cash, or in any way other than a personal check. The receipt must be signed by the person receiving the rent and must state:

• payment date
• amount paid
• period for which the rent was paid
• lot or manufactured home number (Real Property Law section 233(q))

Late charges

Your MHP owner can only charge you for paying your rent late if there is a specific provision in your lease or in the park rules and regulations allowing this charge. Even if there is such a provision, your MHP cannot collect a late charge on any rent payment you make up to 10 days after the due date. In addition, the late charge cannot be more than three percent of the delinquent payment. (RPL section 233(r))

Late charges cannot be compounded and cannot be considered additional rent. This means that you cannot be evicted for not paying late fees – only for not paying your rent. Read more about eviction.

Attorneys’ fees

Many MHP owners include a lease provision allowing them to collect attorneys’ fees from tenants. If your lease includes this provision, you have a similar right: If you successfully sue your MHP owner or win a case they bring against you, you automatically have the same right to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses from your MHP owner, whether or not the lease says so. (RPL sections 233(o), 234)

In addition, your MHP park owner or manager are entitled to attorney’s fees or expenses only if they are awarded by a court order. Your MHP owner or manager cannot even demand that you pay the attorney’s fees or expenses unless they have a court order. (RPL section 233(o))

Tenants’ organizations and cooperatives

You and other tenants have the legal right to organize and to form, join, and participate in tenants’ organizations, such as MHAs, to protect your rights. Tenant groups have the right to meet at reasonable hours in any common area in their park. (RPL section 230)

Tenants’ organizations can seek to purchase a park and form a manufactured home cooperative (co-op).

Residents’ right of first refusal to purchase their MHP

If your MHP owner either markets your park for sale or is considering a bona-fide offer on the park, you and other tenants have the right to purchase the park yourselves.

If the MHP owner receives a bona-fide offer to purchase the park, they must notify the officers of the MHP’s homeowners’ association (MHA) of all the terms of the sale. If there is no MHA, the MHP owner must notify the commissioner of HCR, plus all homeowners in the park. The notice must include:

• purchase price
• material terms and conditions of sale
• homeowners’ right to organize an MHA or cooperative (co-op) within the park
• possible availability of purchase financing from NYS HCR

Important timelines

If an MHA exists at the time of the offer: Within 60 days of receipt of the notice, the MHA must notify the MHP owner of the intent to purchase the park. After providing this notice within this timeline, the MHA has the right to purchase the park on the same terms and conditions stated in the notice within 140 days of receipt of the notice.

If no MHA exists at the time of the offer: You and other park homeowners must notify the MHP owner of your intent to buy the park within 60 days of receipt of the notice. This notice must be signed by greater than 50 percent of all homeowners within the park.

Homeowners have the right to form an association (incorporated or not). Fifty percent of all homeowners must consent to form the MHA. (RPL section 233(a))

Retaliation

Your MHP owner cannot harass or punish you for exercising your rights. They cannot seek to evict you only because you do any of the following:

• complain in good faith to a government agency about a violation of any health or safety laws
• take good-faith actions to protect your rights under your lease
• participate in a tenants’ organization

You can collect damages from park owners who violate this law, which applies to all parks with four or more units. (RPL section 223(b), 233(n))

Eviction

Eviction means the process of your MHP owner forcing you to move and regaining possession of a manufactured home or lot. To evict you legally, your MHP owner must sue in court and win the case.

Only a sheriff, marshal, or constable can carry out a court-ordered warrant for eviction. (Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law (RPAPL) sections 749, 768)

Your MHP owner cannot do any of the following to you:

• evict you by force or unlawful means
• use threats of violence
• remove your possessions
• lock you out of the home
• turn off your essential services, such as water or heat (RPL sections 233(p), 235)

Your MHP owner or manager cannot engage in action that interferes with your comfort, repose, peace, or quiet in your use of the property to force you to vacate. An MHP owner or manager could be fined a civil penalty of $1,000- 10,000 per violation by a court. (RPAPL section 768)

If you are evicted from a manufactured home or lot in a forcible or unlawful manner, you are entitled to recover triple damages in a legal action against the wrongdoer. (RPAPL sections 713, 853)

Grounds for eviction

Under a 2019 amendment in the law, your MHP owners can evict you only for good cause. If you have not given good cause for eviction, your MHP owner must renew your lease. If your MHP does not offer you a renewal lease, the terms of your previous lease carry over.

As a tenant in an MHP, you can be evicted only on the following good-cause grounds:

• nonpayment of rent, provided you have received a written demand for the rent at least 30 days before the start of the eviction proceeding (the eviction proceeding, however, will be ended if your MHP owner accepts your payment of delinquent rent and allowable costs before the court reaches a judgment)
• use of the manufactured home or lot for illegal purposes
• violation of federal, state, or local law that threatens other residents’ safety and welfare
• violation of lease terms or valid park rules or regulations, provided you have failed to correct the violation within 10 days of receiving written notice from the MHP owner. If you or anyone occupying the home is deemed a persistent violator of the lease or park rules or regulations, the MHP owner can serve you with a notice to vacate the premises within 30 days, after which the MHP owner can initiate a court proceeding for eviction. The court will grant an additional 30 days for you to correct the violation before issuing a warrant of eviction, unless the MHP owner has proven to the court that you are an objectionable occupant (in previous court cases, tenants who have engaged in harassing behavior toward the MHP owner or used profanity in front of children were found to be objectionable by the court)
• change in the use of the land, as long as the park owner provides written notice, by certified mail or delivered personally, of the proposed change in the use of the land (RPL section 233(b))

MHP owner’s change in use of the park

Your MHP owner can change the use of their land, as long as they notify you in writing (personally or by certified mail) of the following:

• that they are making a proposed change in use
• that you must find other accommodations as a result of the change

The MHP owner must wait two years after notifying you of the proposed change in use before starting eviction proceedings. When buying a park, the prospective MHP owner must certify if they will change the use of the park. If the purchaser certifies that there will be no change in use, but later changes their mind, they cannot start evictions because of the change of use until five years after the purchase of the park.

If you own your manufactured home and must move because of your MHP owner’s change in use, your MHP owner must pay you up to $15,000, pursuant to a court order. The court will calculate the amount of the payments to you and other homeowners. The payments will consider:

• cost of relocation of the manufactured home
• number of homeowners who will need to receive these payments
• purchase price of the park
• value of the land
• value of the development rights to the land
• any other factors the court determines are relevant

Warrant of eviction

If you are served with legal papers in an eviction proceeding:

• You will have the opportunity to appear in court and explain to the judge why you should not be required to move.
• You may wish to consult an attorney to protect your legal rights if the MHP owner seeks to evict you from the park.

Never ignore legal papers.

If you do not appear in court on the date and at the time specified in the legal papers, or if the judge decides against you, the court will issue a warrant for your eviction. The warrant is given to the county sheriff, or city marshal or constable. The warrant is the formal order of the court requiring you to move. It must be served by the sheriff, marshal, or constable.

Letting others use your manufactured home

Subletting

A sublet transfers only a portion of your legal interest in your MHP to another person. If you have a lease and live in a park with four or more manufactured homes, you have the right to sublet with your MHP owner’s advance consent, even if the lease says otherwise.

If you wish to sublet, you must send a written request to your MHP owner by certified mail, return receipt requested. The request must contain all of the following information:

• the length of the sublease
• the name and home and business addresses of the proposed subtenant
• your reason for subletting
• your address during the sublet
• the written consent of any co-tenant or guarantor
• a copy of the proposed sublease together with a copy of your own lease, if available

Timing

Within 10 days after you mail this request, your MHP owner can ask for additional information to help make a decision. Your MHP owner cannot require additional information that is unreasonably difficult for you to get.

Within 30 days after you mail your request to sublet, or mail the additional information requested by your MHP owner, whichever is later, your MHP owner must send a notice of consent, or reasons for denying consent. If your MHP owner fails to send this written notice on time, this is considered consent to sublet.

MHP owners cannot do any of the following:

• have a blanket rule against subletting
• require the proposed subtenant to provide unreasonably detailed financial information
• deny a sublet because there is a waiting list to get into the park

Grounds

If your MHP owner denies the sublet on reasonable grounds, you cannot sublet to that proposed subtenant and the park owner is not required to release you from your lease. If your MHP owner denies the sublet on unreasonable grounds, you can sublet. If a lawsuit results and a judge rules that your MHP owner denied the sublet in bad faith, you can recover court costs and attorney’s fees.

When considering subletting your home, remember that you remain primarily liable for the lease obligations.

If you sublet without following these procedures, your MHP owner may have grounds to evict you. (RPL sections 233(t), 226(b))

Assigning your lease

Assigning a lease transfers your entire remaining lease term, and all lease obligations, to the new tenant. Your right to assign a lease is much more restricted than your right to sublet.

You cannot assign your lease without your MHP owner’s written consent. Your MHP owner can withhold this consent without cause. If your MHP owner reasonably refuses consent, you cannot assign your lease. You are not entitled to be released from the lease.

If the MHP owner unreasonably refuses consent, you are entitled to be released from the lease after 30 days’ notice. (RPL section 233(t)(l))

If you make an assignment that does not comply with the law, your MHP owner may have grounds to evict you.

Sharing your manufactured home

Even if you are the only tenant named in your lease, you can share your manufactured home or lot with immediate family, one additional occupant, and the occupant’s dependent children. Your MHP owner cannot restrict occupancy of the home or lot to only the tenant named in the lease, or to that tenant and their immediate family

If your MHP owner violates this law, you can sue them for an injunction, actual damages, and court costs. (RPL sections 233(s), 235(t))

Health and safety

You have the right to privacy within your manufactured home. If you are the owner of the home, the MHP owner cannot enter your manufactured home without your prior consent, except in an emergency. If you rent your manufactured home, the park owner cannot enter except with reasonable notice and during reasonable hours. (RPL section 233(g))

Warranty of habitability from your MHP owner

As an MHP tenant, you are entitled to a livable, safe, and sanitary park, including all common areas, roads, the lot, and the home (if you also rent your home). This is called a warranty of habitability. Your lease cannot include any terms denying these rights.

For example, your MHP owner is violating this warranty if they do not provide water or other essential utility services, or do not repair sewer problems. Your MHP owner cannot willfully or intentionally fail to provide any service or facility, once they have agreed to do so. (Real Property Law sections 233(m), 235-b)

In emergencies, you and other tenants can make necessary repairs and deduct reasonable repair costs from your rent. Keep all receipts for such repairs.

Your MHP owner must have a permit that shows the park meets requirements for:

• fire safety
• utilities, including water supply, sewage facilities, electricity, gas, and fuel oil
• site size
• manufactured home stands and anchoring
• trash storage and disposal

If you have problems in any of these areas, contact your health officials. Your best contact may be your county’s Department of Health. (New York State Sanitary Code; 10 NYCCR part 17)

If you have a rent-to-own contract, your contract must clearly state that you are occupying a rented home until ownership is transferred, and that your MHP owner and operator is responsible for compliance with the warranty of habitability, including but not limited to all major repairs and capital improvements.

Your MHP owner must have a permit, issued by the state or the local county health department, in order to operate an MHP.

Access

As long as you comply with local building codes, your MHP owner cannot:

• restrict access or charge a fee to repairers, suppliers, or service people coming into the park
• restrict the making of any interior improvement to your manufactured home if you own the home
• charge a fee for the installation of an electric or gas appliance in your home unless your MHP owner performs the installation at your request (RPL section 233(h)(2))

Installation charges

Your MHP owner cannot require you to buy skirting, tie downs, or any other equipment, supplies, or services from them. Your MHP owner can determine, by rule or regulation, the type or quality of such equipment. They can require you to purchase this equipment but you can select the merchant. (RPL section 233(h)(l))

Emergency contact person

Your MHP owner must designate an agent in or near the park to ensure the availability of emergency services in the park. The agent’s name, address, and telephone number must be posted in a conspicuous location in the park and also be given, in writing, to you and all other park tenants, as well as to local officials. (RPL section 233(1))

Notice of service interruptions

To permit you to make appropriate arrangements, your MHP owner must give you reasonable notice, whenever possible, of any planned disruption of necessary services. (RPL section 233(k))

MHP owner negligence

Your MHP owner cannot put provisions in your lease that:

• exempt them from liability for injuries to persons or property caused by their or their employees’ negligence
• waive your right to a jury trial in any lawsuit against them for personal injury or property damage (General Obligations Law section 5-321; RPL section 259(c))

Resources at the Office of the New York Attorney General (OAG)

Hotline: 1-800-771-7755
Deaf or hard of hearing: 1-800-788-9898

Executive offices:
The Capitol 
Albany NY12224-0341
518-776-2000

28 Liberty Street 
New York NY 10005 
212-416-8000

Complain about violations of your rights

If your rights are violated under RPL section 233 (Manufactured Home parks rights and responsibilities), contact the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) toll free at 1-800-432-4210.

If you have questions or believe you have been a victim of housing discrimination, contact:

• The OAG’s Civil Rights Bureau investigates and prosecutes discriminatory policies and patterns or practices of discrimination throughout the state. File a complaint online with OAG.
• The New York State Division of Human Rights handles individual complaints of discrimination. You have one year after an alleged violation to file a complaint.
• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) handles individual complaints of discrimination based on the federal Fair Housing Act. You have one year after an alleged violation to file a complaint.

The OAG also handles complaints about other matters concerning tenants’ rights:

• The OAG’s regional offices mediate tenants’ complaints. When appropriate, OAG’s regional offices bring legal actions against park owners.
• The Attorney General has enforcement authority when a park owner repeatedly or constantly violates the law.

You may want to consult a private attorney or legal services, such as Legal Aid.