Mobile home owners would follow sale, rent, and safety rules

Community owners would notify residents before closing or changing a community’s use and give them a chance to buy it. The process covers people who rent a mobile home, manufactured home, or site in the community. Owners would negotiate in good faith and provide reasonable time and information for residents to consider the purchase. Residents would have 60 days to make an offer and obtain financing, followed by another 60 days to close if they do both. Residents could assign their purchase right to a government entity, housing authority, or qualified nonprofit to keep the community operating. The right would not apply to certain good-faith transfers to a spouse, certain family members, a joint tenant, or an owner-controlled business. Owners would give notice at least 12 months before a planned closure or change in use. Other sale-related notices would be required when the community is listed, the owner receives a written offer, or a foreclosure complaint is served.

A community owner could subtract qualifying sale income from taxable income. The sale would need to go to a homeowners’ association, cooperative, membership organization, homeowner-only group, nonprofit, or nonprofit affordable housing developer. More than 51 percent of the community’s occupants and residents would have to approve the sale. The provision would apply to income from a sale of a community located in Wisconsin. The tax treatment would apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.

Community owners or operators would generally need to give 90 days’ notice before raising rent or other resident charges. The rules would cover rent, fees, service charges, and assessments charged by a mobile or manufactured home community. The usual total increase could not exceed the average percentage change in the U.S. consumer price index. The total increase could not exceed 2 percent when that index change is below 2 percent or 4 percent when it is above 4 percent. The owner or operator could exceed those limits for an extraordinary increase in operating expenses, but would need to provide an itemized financial summary. Residents could request a meeting, file a complaint with the Department of Safety and Professional Services, or sue in circuit court. The owner or operator would have to prove the amount was needed. The notice and limits would apply to each 12-month period. A proposed increase based on extraordinary expenses could become void if the owner or operator refused DSPS mediation.

The Department of Safety and Professional Services would inspect each manufactured home community every year and review residents’ complaints. The oversight would cover manufactured home communities and complaints about their operation. DSPS would forward a complaint to another agency or local government if that entity could better resolve it and would notify the complainant about its actions. The bill would remove DSPS authority to let a city, village, or county issue permits and regulate manufactured home communities. A violating owner could face a fine of up to $1,000, and an affected resident could bring a civil lawsuit. Annual inspections would be added to the listed inspection situations. Leases would also have to provide DSPS contact information.

Each community owner would develop an evacuation plan for residents and occupants. The plan would cover natural disasters and other emergencies at mobile or manufactured home communities. Community rules would have to explain how residents and occupants use the plan. The plan could not take effect without approval from the municipality where the community is located. The requirement would apply when a community owner develops an evacuation plan; no effective date for the plan is stated beyond municipal approval.