When you buy a manufactured home that sits on a rented space in a California community, you are signing two things at once. One is the purchase of the home. The other is a tenancy in the space underneath it, and that tenancy is governed by a specific chapter of state law called the Mobilehome Residency Law.
It lives at Civil Code section 798 and following. The Legislature made it part of the deal automatically: the MRL is deemed a part of the terms of any rental agreement or lease in a mobilehome park, whether the document mentions it or not.
Most buyers never read it. You do not need to read all of it, but you should know what it does, what it does not do, and which sections you are most likely to need.
Where rent is concerned, the law gives you notice, not a cap
This is the single most misunderstood point, so it goes first.
Civil Code section 798.30 requires management to give a homeowner written notice of any rent increase at least 90 days before the date of the increase.
That is a notice requirement. It is not a limit on the amount. Statewide, the MRL does not tell park management what it may charge.
There is one narrow statewide cap, at Civil Code section 798.30.5, which limits increases in a twelve month period to 3 percent plus the change in the cost of living, or 5 percent, whichever is lower. Read the definition before you get excited about it. That section applies only to a "qualified mobilehome park," which it defines as a park located within and governed by the jurisdictions of two or more incorporated cities. That is a small number of parks. The section is currently written to be repealed on January 1, 2030.
Beyond that, any real limit on space rent comes from a local ordinance, and most of the Sacramento region does not have one. We walk through that separately in our piece on Sacramento space rent.
One related change is worth knowing. For many years, Civil Code section 798.17 exempted leases longer than twelve months from local rent control ordinances, which is why some communities pushed long leases hard. AB 2782 unwound that. Leases signed on or after February 13, 2020 lost the exemption as of January 1, 2021, older exempt leases ran out by January 1, 2025, and section 798.17 was repealed as of that date. If you are handed a long lease today and told it protects you from something or exempts you from something, ask exactly which provision they mean.
Park rules are enforceable, and they are part of the deal
Communities run on written rules. Exterior storage, pets, guest parking, vehicle repairs, landscaping standards, quiet hours, occupancy limits. The MRL contemplates all of it and makes those rules enforceable as part of the tenancy.
Two practical points.
First, you should receive the rules in writing, along with a copy of the MRL itself. Section 798.15 requires management to provide the text of the chapter as an exhibit incorporated into the rental agreement by reference, together with the required notices about homeowner rights. If you were never handed either, that is worth raising before close, not after.
Second, read the rules like you will have to live under them, because you will. The most common source of friction we see is not rent. It is a rule about a vehicle, a fence, a tree, or a family member staying too long, discovered after the buyer has moved in.
The community gets a say in who buys your home, and who sells you one
Civil Code section 798.74 is the section that most directly shapes a purchase.
Management may require the right of prior approval of a prospective purchaser whose home will remain in the park. The seller is required to give notice of the sale to management before close.
The statute cuts both ways, and the buyer protections in it are real:
- Within 15 days of receiving notice of the sale, management must give both the seller and the prospective buyer, in writing, the standards it customarily uses to approve a tenancy application, including the minimum credit score it requires, and a list of every document it will require.
- Within 15 business days of receiving all of the requested information, management must notify both parties in writing of acceptance or rejection. If management fails or refuses to notify, it is deemed to have approved the application.
- Management may reject an application only on specific grounds: an inability to pay the rent, estimated utilities and other charges; a prior tenancy history indicating the applicant is likely not to comply with the rules; or fraud, deceit or concealment of a material fact in the application.
- Any fee collected for a credit report or financial report is credited toward the first month's rent, and if the applicant is rejected, management must refund it in full within 30 days.
If you are buying into an age-restricted community, there is one more permitted ground for denial, which is the community's own age rule. Civil Code section 798.76 allows management to require a prospective purchaser to comply with a rule limiting residency based on age requirements for housing for older persons, as long as that rule is consistent with federal fair housing law. We covered how that process runs in practice in getting approved by a 55+ community.
Selling: the law protects your ability to sell in place
The transfer article of the MRL, sections 798.70 through 798.83, gives homeowners a set of protections that people often do not realize they have.
Management cannot charge you a transfer fee or selling fee as a condition of a sale inside the park unless it actually performed a service in the sale, and it may not perform such a service unless you requested it in writing. Management is also restricted from requiring that your home be listed or shown through the park. There are separate provisions governing when a home may be required to be removed on sale and when upgrades may be required on resale.
Those sections are the backbone of selling a home that sits in a California community.
What the MRL does not do
Being clear about the limits matters more than reciting the protections.
It is not enforced by a state agency in the way people expect. The MRL is enforced in a court of law. HCD does not have authority to enforce MRL violations directly. Since July 2021 a homeowner under a rental agreement may submit a complaint to HCD, which runs a program to help resolve and coordinate resolution of the more severe alleged violations, but that is assistance and coordination, not an enforcement hammer.
It does not cap your rent except in the narrow case described above.
It does not guarantee you a buyer, and it does not remove management's role in approving the person who takes over your space.
It does not override your own lease and rules on the many matters it does not address.
What to do with this before you sign
Ask for four documents and read them: the rental agreement, the current park rules, the written tenancy approval standards required by section 798.74, and the community's history of space rent increases over the last several years. A community that hands those over promptly is telling you something useful. So is one that does not.
If you want help reading a specific package, that is a normal part of what we do on the buy side. See what is available now, or if you are the one selling, start here.
*This article is general information about California law and is not legal advice. The Mobilehome Residency Law contains many provisions not summarized here, it is amended almost every year, and how it applies depends on your specific lease and circumstances. Consult a California attorney or contact HCD's Mobilehome Assistance Center for your situation.*
Sources: California Civil Code, Mobilehome Residency Law, section 798 and following; Civil Code section 798.74; Civil Code section 798.30.5; California HCD Mobilehome Assistance Center; California Senate Select Committee on Manufactured Home Communities, annual MRL handbook
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