Delaware lawmakers are considering two bills intended to offer relief to manufactured home residents battered by lot rent hikes and critical infrastructure failures.
During a Senate Housing Committee hearing on Wednesday, Delaware Manufactured Housing Ombudsman Brian Eng rattled off a list of maintenance problems he has encountered in communities across the state: undrinkable water, raw sewage leaks in residents' front yards, and roads impassable for emergency vehicles.
Eng spoke in support of a bill that would allow the Department of Justice to treat a manufactured home park owners’ “pattern or practice” of neglecting their legal obligations to tenants — including maintaining infrastructure like water filtration systems or septic tanks — as a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act.
"This bill doesn't make act illegal that is currently legal," he said. "What it does is make the penalties more severe."
The penalties would only apply to repeat violations of conditions in Delaware's Manufactured Housing code and legally required conditions of tenants' leases — and, more specifically, violations that place tenants' safety or property at risk.
"Instead of creating a brand-new enforcement scheme, we just lean on the big one we already have: the Consumer Fraud Act," Eng added.
The bill would also enable the DOJ to file for a receivership: an arrangement wherein tenants' lot rent payments are held by the DOJ until the landlord resolves an outstanding maintenance problem. Under current Delaware law, a single tenant can file a case in a Delaware Justice of the Peace court requesting that their entire community — in the case of manufactured home parks, often hundreds of residents — in receivership. While the DOJ is obligated to act as the receiver in those cases, the agency is not able to file for receivership itself.
"Under current law, there may be receivership cases we don't know are happening until we get an order from the court telling us we are now the receiver," Eng said. "That is extraordinarily inconvenient, but moreover, if we're going to be involved, it's better we be involved early."
Enabling the DOJ to file receivership cases for manufactured home communities, Eng added, could provide the pressure necessary to resolve residents' concerns before the receivership takes effect.
"There are community owners out there who will not take tenants seriously when they complain about conditions," he said. "It's a little different when the DOJ comes knocking."
Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association President Bill Kinnick points to the Briarwood Manor manufactured home community near Laurel as a prime example of a community that could benefit from DOJ involvement.
"The community has been without water safe for drinking or washing for more than twelve weeks," he said. "And this isn't the first time. It's a pattern and practice — this community has had these issues for two decades."
But representatives of landowners present for Wednesday's hearing argued that providing the DOJ with additional powers to intervene would unnecessarily escalate disputes that could otherwise be resolved without the threat of a receivership.
John Paradee, an attorney who represents Delaware manufactured home park owners in disputes with tenants, pointed to the Donovan Smith manufactured home community near Lewes as an example: after receiving multiple notices of violation from the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control for septic system failures at the park, the park's owner — a New York-based company called KDM Development, which also owns Briarwood Manor — agreed to work with the state to connect the community to Lewes' municipal sewer system using state funding.
"That happened all without the need for any of this," Paradee said.
The effort to connect Donovan Smith to Lewes' sewer system was, however, beset by delays — delays that Lewes' Board of Public Works and residents attributed in large part to the park's management.
The bill passed on a party-line vote on Thursday, with state Sen. Bryant Richardson — whose district includes Briarwood Manor — voting alongside his Republican colleagues in opposition.
Meanwhile, House lawmakers are considering a bill to prevent manufactured home park owners from raising rents for a year if they increased rents by more than 5 percent the previous year.
House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst, the bill's prime sponsor, says the legislation is intended to remedy an unintended consequence of the General Assembly's decision last year to tie manufactured home lot rent increases to the consumer price index — a change intended to keep lot rent increases in check.
When inflation spiked in the latter half of 2022, manufactured home residents across Delaware saw their lot rents rise by an average of five percent. "In my district, most manufactured home residents are on fixed incomes, and that kind of increase just wasn't manageable," said Longhurst. "I had a constituent tell me she was considering suicide because she lives off her disability check and can't afford her lot rent."
The bill would also require manufactured home park owners to provide the state with contact information for their local representative and corporate office. Longhurst says that requirement targets out-of-state landowners who make no effort to communicate with residents or state regulatory agencies.
“If you are an out-of-state landowner, you have to provide us with information," she said. "They disappear – they have no investment in this state, nor do they care."
Though Longhurst's bill faces firm opposition from landowners, who argue that their businesses could fail if they cannot raise lot rents to keep pace with inflation, it was released from committee on Friday and will now advance to the House floor.
