Help Protect Our Homes From Manufactured Home Park SLUMLORDS

Homeowners in manufactured home parks are requesting a change to the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act (MHPTA) from the legislature in Victoria.

The act needs to be amended so that homeowner’s rights and investments in manufactured home parks are protected. Park owners and managers have no obligation to upkeep the park’s maintenance and screen renters and new homeowners, so that homeowners in parks face a continual battle to keep the values of their homes from plummeting.

Manufactured homes in parks offer unique living environment for thousands of people across BC. They offer affordable housing, a unique community that is close knit, and space in communal parkland or even yards in which to help families grow, in good city locations. Poor management converts this low-cost housing into grow-ops and prostitution houses; and poor management allows for the park’s infrastructure and homes to become derelict, unsavory, and homes are allowed to be trashed. To help offset poor management of parks, the MHPTA needs to state that homeowners have the right to manage a percentage of a set portion the monthly rent they pay towards the upkeep of the park along with the landowner and managers.

Co-management of yearly repairs and maintenance would ensure the upkeep of the infrastructure in parks, and ensure that managers and owners be held accountable. Currently homeowners have only the BC Residential Tenancy Branch to help protect their homes through the arbitration process. This is a last recourse to help hold landowners and managers to be accountable for their responsibilities. Homeowner’s rights are not being represented as they are being processed as renters who have no equity in the land of the owner’s park. Legally, homeowners are obliged to go through the arbitration process before the legal system in court, and are faced to go through the process time after time as issues are dealt with on a one-time, one-issue basis. This process does not help build better management relations between the landowners, managers and homeowners, and does not maintain management of park infrastructure on a long-term basis.

Amending the MHPTA to help hold park owners and managers accountable will allow representation and protection of the rights of homeowners in manufactured home parks. Amendments to the act need to state that a percentage of the yearly rent be put aside for maintenance (upgrades to failing infrastructures, and upgrades in general). The act would also need to state that the landowners and managers are to work with homeowner committees in their parks in order to have the residence’s approval for the use of the yearly budget. When landowners and managers are neglecting such maintenance and projects, the park committees would have access to use the funds for such work.

Politicians that are attuned to their constituency need to better represent us as homeowners in these viable communities that benefit all financial and age groups. Homeowners in manufactured home parks are formally asking our representatives in Victoria to help protect our homes from landowners who care nothing about our unique community and are only looking at the financial gain.

Please sign the petition that requests this change in the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act.