Skip to main content

Search

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 598.0903 through 598.0999 Trade Regulation and Practices Act; Nev. Rev. Stat. § 41.600

Prohibited Practices: Numerous enumerated deceptive trade practices, including knowing failure to disclose material fact in connection with sale or lease of goods or services; knowing violation of state or federal statute relating to the sale or lease of goods or services; taking advantage of consumer’s inability to protect his or her interests due to illiteracy, mental or physical impairment, or similar condition; unconscionable practices.

Scope: In course of business or occupation.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: N.M. Stat. Ann. §§ 57-12-1 through 57-12-22 Unfair Practices Act

Prohibited Practices: Unfair or deceptive trade practices (deception must be knowing), including 17 enumerated prohibitions; unconscionable trade practices that, to a person’s detriment, take advantage of the knowledge, experience, ability or capacity of a person to a grossly unfair degree, or result in gross disparity between price and value received; referral sales; willful misrepresentation of age or condition of motor vehicle; other specific prohibitions.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: V.I. Code Ann. tit. 12A, §§ 101 through 123 and 180 through 185 Consumer Protection Law of 1973

Prohibited Practices: Deceptive or unconscionable trade practice in the sale, lease, rental or loan or in the offering for sale, lease, rental, or loan of any consumer goods or services, or in the collection of consumer debts, including but not limited to 16 enumerated practices. Additional prohibitions on deceptive pricing in § 121. Additional requirements for price disclosure of prescription drugs. Prohibited practices by motor vehicle dealers and repair shops enumerated at §§ 183 and 184.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: Wis. Stat. § 100.18

Prohibited Practices: Untrue, deceptive or misleading advertisements and representations, including numerous itemized deceptive representations.

Scope: Detailed scope provision applying to virtually any transaction.

Exclusions: Insurance; statements made by licensed real estate brokers and salespersons without knowledge of falsity; publishers, radio, and television stations who publish advertisements in good faith without knowledge of falsity.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: Wis. Stat. §§ 100.20 through 100.264

Prohibited Practices: Unfair methods of competition and unfair trade practices; special sections on specific industries.

Scope: Business.

Exclusions: None specified.

Private Remedies: Double pecuniary loss, costs and attorney fees, but private remedies available only for violation of general orders (i.e., regulations) or special orders (i.e., cease and desist orders) issued by department of agriculture, trade and consumer protection.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 40-12-101 through 40-12-114 Consumer Protection Act

Prohibited Practices: 16 enumerated practices, including a catchall generally prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices.

Scope: In course of business and in connection with a consumer transaction, defined as the advertising, sale, offering for sale, or distribution of any merchandise, defined to include real or personal property, services, intangibles or any article of value, for purposes that are primarily personal, family or household.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.1.1 Sales Misrepresentations

Federal and state laws governing manufacturing and safety standards, installation of homes, financing, transportation, warranties, and repossession are analyzed in other books in this series.1 UDAP statutes can provide additional remedies for violations of these other statutes and can also be used to define additional unfair or deceptive manufactured home practices.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.1.4 Land-Home Packages

The sale of a manufactured home along with a lot to install the home is called a “land-home package.” In some parts of the country, these land-home packages are more common than purchases of homes to be placed in manufactured home communities. Usually the lot owner is a separate entity than the home dealer. The lot owner will subdivide land into lots, and establish a business arrangement with a manufactured home dealer. The consumer then effectively engages in two transactions, a home purchase and a real estate closing, although the consumer may view these as a single transaction.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.2 Tying Arrangements in Sale of Manufactured Homes, Utilities, or Other Products; Discriminatory Practices

A common complaint about manufactured home communities is that the community owner requires residents to purchase utility service or other goods or services from a specified supplier. Some state manufactured home community statutes prohibit this practice, or prohibit making a profit on certain required purchases.31 Even if the practice does not run afoul of such a statute, it may violate the state UDAP statute.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.3 Unfair Restriction on Tenant’s Sale of the Home

A manufactured home community may engage in unfair practices where it assesses charges or places other restrictions on a resident’s sale of the resident’s own manufactured home.36 Such restrictions may also amount to the tort of intentional interference with a prospective contract.37 It is not unfair, however, for a manufactured home community to offer a low price for a home when other buyers were available to the consumer.38

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.4 Licensure, Leases, Restrictions on Fees, Habitability

Operating a manufactured home community without a license required by the state is a UDAP violation.42 Other UDAP case law prohibits manufactured home communities from requiring tenants to sign leases that include illegal and unenforceable clauses,43 even if the community does not enforce these clauses.44 But the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that a community owner’s demand for a rental amount that had been disapproved under a rent control statute was not

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.5 Manufactured Home Community Eviction Practices

Most states have statutes restricting the grounds on which manufactured home community residents can be evicted.49 In Wisconsin, the issue is addressed in part by UDAP regulations that, among other things, require manufactured home communities to disclose the grounds for eviction, prohibit retaliatory eviction, and prohibit the community owner from evicting a resident in order to make the site available for another buyer who is purchasing a home from the community owner.50

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.6.1 Resident ownership of the manufactured home community

The fundamental problem for manufactured home community residents is that they own manufactured homes that are installed on rented land, leaving them extremely vulnerable to overreaching by the community owner. “Mobile homes” are not really very mobile; they cost thousands of dollars to move, not counting the potential for serious structural damage to the home. Moreover, there may be no other place to go. In many areas there are no manufactured home communities that will accept a home moved from another park.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.6.2 Manufactured home community legislation

Most states have enacted specific legislation dealing with manufactured home communities.60 Some of the state statutes are comprehensive, dealing with a wide array of issues faced by residents in these communities. Many of these statutes require a written lease, good cause for eviction, disclosure of fees, and notification to residents of changed land use. Typical statutes also prohibit unreasonable rules, waiver of statutory rights, retaliatory evictions, and restrictions on a resident’s choice of vendors.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.1.2.6.3 Referral to manufactured home community residents associations

Whether or not it is practical for an attorney to represent a manufactured home community resident, it is useful to refer the resident to a local, statewide, or national manufactured home community resident association. Associations use lay advocates to assist residents, and may also enable a number of residents with similar problems to obtain joint legal representation. They also bring abuses to the attention of policymakers and work for policy changes in the state.

Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices: 8.2.1 Introduction

UDAP statutes can be used to challenge landlord-tenant practices except in states where leases of real property are outside the statute’s scope.64 Depending on state procedural rules, a tenant may be able to assert these UDAP claims as counterclaims in the eviction case.65