Manufactured Housing Bill Mandates 1-Year Leases, Limits Rent Hikes for Tenants in Federally Financed Parks

The Manufactured Housing Tenants Bill of Rights Act of 2025 is designed to bring a serious dose of stability to the lives of people who own their home but rent the land underneath it—a common setup in manufactured home communities. What’s the catch? These new rules only apply to communities that use specific federal financing, namely loans insured by HUD (FHA) or bought by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. If the park owner wants that sweet federal financing, they have to guarantee a baseline of tenant protections, starting 180 days after this bill becomes law.

The New Lease on Life: Stability and Predictability

If you live in a covered community, the biggest immediate change is the lease. Owners must now offer a minimum one-year lease that automatically renews for another year unless they have a legitimate, written reason not to renew. This is huge for stability, especially for families or retirees living on fixed incomes. No more worrying about getting a non-renewal notice just because the owner feels like shaking things up. This provision (Sec. 3(b)) anchors your housing situation for the medium term.

Taming the Rent Hike Beast

Perhaps the most impactful part of this bill deals with rent increases, which have been a major source of financial stress in these communities. Under the new rules, owners must give you at least 60 days' written notice for any rent or fee increase. Crucially, that notice must include a detailed explanation of why the rent is going up, including specifics about rising operating or maintenance costs (Sec. 3(b)).

Here’s where it gets interesting: if the rent increase is more than 5% of your current monthly rent, the owner has to give you an extra 30 days of notice for every additional 2.5% increase. So, if the owner wants to hit you with a 10% rent hike, they can’t just give you 60 days; they have to give you 120 days (60 days for the first 5%, plus two extra 30-day blocks for the next 5%). This escalating notice requirement gives tenants much-needed time to budget or plan, making those massive, sudden jumps much harder to pull off quickly.

Your Home, Your Right to Sell

For manufactured home owners, the biggest asset they often have is the home itself. This bill protects their ability to sell it. Tenants are guaranteed the right to sell their manufactured home without having to move it first (Sec. 3(b)). This right even holds if the owner evicts the tenant—the evicted tenant still gets at least 45 days to sell the home on-site. Furthermore, tenants can put up "For Sale" signs and sublease their land site to a new buyer, provided the buyer passes the community’s standard application process. If the owner denies a prospective buyer, they must give a written denial explaining the specific reasons why. This provision is designed to prevent park owners from blocking sales to force tenants to abandon their homes.

Accountability and the Heavy Hammer of Penalties

This isn't just a list of nice ideas; the bill has teeth. If a park owner or their affiliate willfully and significantly breaks these new consumer protection rules, they face severe consequences. The Secretary of HUD and the Director of FHFA must block them from getting any future federally backed housing financing for at least two years (Sec. 3(e)). That’s a massive financial threat for large corporate owners who rely on these programs.

Beyond the financing ban, the bill mandates direct payments to injured tenants. For instance, if an owner violates the rent increase notice rules, they must pay back the increased rent charged plus 25% interest. If they violate your right to sell your home, the penalty can be as high as the home’s sale price or 12 months of your rent, whichever is greater. These penalties shift the risk of non-compliance squarely onto the park owner, which is a significant change from the status quo.

What’s Next: The Standards Commission

In a move that signals an intent to keep strengthening these protections, the bill establishes a new 16-member Manufactured Home Community Lending Standards Commission (Sec. 4). This Commission, which includes one current manufactured home resident, has one year to develop and propose even better consumer protection standards than the ones outlined in the bill. Their recommendations will guide how future federal loan incentives are structured, pushing park owners to adopt even higher standards of tenant protection if they want the best financing rates.