NCLC’s Model Manufactured Home Community Stability and Preservation Act (2023)

NCLC’s Model Manufactured Home Community Stability and Preservation Act (2023) sets forth model language to give residents of manufactured home communities an opportunity to purchase their communities. It requires the community owner to give the residents—and a state agency, the local housing authority, and the local licensing or health and safety enforcement agency—advance notice of any prospective sale of the community. The notice must include the price, terms, and conditions that the community owner has provisionally accepted or is prepared to accept. The model law then gives the residents 90 days to propose a purchase agreement. It requires the community owner to consider their proposed agreement and negotiate with them in good faith. Moreover, if the residents’ offer matches the third-party offer, the community owner is required to sell the community to the residents. Once a purchase agreement is reached, the residents have 90 more days to arrange the necessary financing, and a commercially reasonable time to close on the sale. The model law is modeled on laws in states such as New Hampshire that have been very successful in fostering stable, affordable resident-owned communities.