Committee reviews changes to notice and tracking when manufactured-home parks are sold

Senate Substitute Bill 5,298, on notice of sale and tenants’ opportunity to compete for manufactured housing communities, was heard by the House Housing Committee on March 17.

Serena Dolly, staff to the committee, summarized current law and the bill. Under existing statute an owner intending to sell a manufactured housing community must provide two notices: a notice of sale and a notice of an opportunity to compete to purchase. Under the substitute bill, the written notice-of-sale requirement is removed and several changes are made to the notice-of-opportunity process. The bill adds the city or county and any housing authority where the community is located to the list of entities that must receive notice. Notices to tenants must be served personally or, if the tenant is absent, by affixing a copy to the home and mailing a copy. Notices to other parties may be delivered electronically. The bill would require the notice to the Department of Commerce to include a list of current tenants with contact information, and would require the owner to provide Commerce with status updates every six months until the property is sold or taken off the market.

Senator Noel Frame, a prime sponsor, framed the bill as a response to the vulnerability of manufactured-home residents, who commonly own their homes but not the land beneath them. "Our manufactured and mobile park residents are some of our most vulnerable renters in the state," Frame said, noting reported purchases by private-equity and other investors that have resulted in steep rent increases for residents. Frame said this bill builds on prior legislation that created the early notice procedure and refines that process based on lessons learned during implementation.

Victoria O'Banion, manager for Cooperative Housing Development at the Northwest Cooperative Development Center (NWCDC), testified in support. She described NWCDC's work helping tenant collectives convert parks to limited-equity cooperatives, and said the bill's requirement for Commerce to host post-notice tracking information would answer a common question: "Did the community sell?" She urged committee support, saying tracking would help homeowners, landowners, municipalities and eligible nonprofit organizations compete for acquisitions.

Committee members asked about the scale of the problem and whether data exist on the number of manufactured-home communities and residents affected. Senator Frame said up-to-date, comprehensive data are limited and that increasing data collection is an explicit purpose of the bill: "Data tracking is quite literally the point of this bill," she said.

The committee closed the hearing on SSB 5,298 after the invited testimony and indicated no committee vote was taken that day.