ABSTRACT

Most owners of mobile homes, also known as manufactured homes, rent the underlying land from a private mobile home park owner. Popular perception of manufactured housing as mobile belies the reality that most of these homes are never moved after their delivery from the factory. Even though mobile home residents typically lose their homes or sell them at a loss if displaced from a park, state law governing lot leases in mobile home parks treats lot tenants as essentially mobile. In Virginia, the mild lot tenant protections in the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act (MHLRA) are clouded by statutory ambiguities. The lack of written opinions in General District Courts where Virginia eviction cases are heard, and the near impossibility of appealing a rent nonpayment case to a court of record due to the requirement of posting an appeal bond, contribute to a dynamic where the mobile home park is governed more by informal relationships between lot tenants and park owners, rather than by law. The social bonds under- lying these relationships are changing as corporations take over management from longtime small landlords, suggesting that enforcement of formal legal protections will be essential to retaining manufactured housing as a form of affordable housing. This Article develops strategies for defending Virginia mobile home- owners from displacement through statutory interpretation arguments, litigation strategies, legislative and budgetary advocacy at the state level, and coordination with residents organizing to remain at home.