Senate panel reviews technical changes to manufactured‑home sale notice law

The Washington State Senate Housing Committee on a public hearing discussed a proposed substitute to Senate Bill 5298 that would change how owners notify residents and public entities when a manufactured or mobile‑home community is offered for sale.

The bill, as briefed to the committee, would remove the initial "notice of sale" requirement, change the list of recipients for the required "notice of opportunity to compete to purchase," permit electronic delivery of notices to government entities, and require community owners to provide the Department of Commerce with a status update on any sale every six months.

The change matters because residents of manufactured‑home communities typically own their homes but not the land where those homes sit, leaving them vulnerable to rent and space‑rent increases after a park sale. The 2019 statute creating an opportunity‑to‑compete process was intended to give tenants,…