Mobile Home Laws in Delaware: Lot Leases, Evictions, and Park Closures

If you own a manufactured home on a rented lot in Delaware, your relationship with the community is governed by the Manufactured Homes and Manufactured Home Communities Act at Title 25, Chapter 70 of the Delaware Code. The mobile home laws in Delaware set what your lot lease must contain, cap how often and by how much rent can rise, spell out the maintenance the community owner owes you, limit the grounds for eviction, and require a year of notice plus relocation assistance if the community closes. The Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Authority (DEMHRA) administers the relocation fund and the rent dispute process, but it does not mediate general landlord-tenant complaints.

What Your Lot Lease Must Contain

Every new or renewed lot rental agreement has to include a specific set of terms. The lease must identify the exact lot, state the total annual rent and payment terms, describe any late fees and when they trigger, and list every additional fee or charge with the service it pays for.¹

A services rider must describe every utility, facility, and service the community owner provides. A required summary page must show the rent, the lease duration, landlord and property manager contact information, the security deposit, and the rent charged for the lot over the prior three years. That three-year rent history is worth reading before you sign; it shows you how quickly the lot has been getting more expensive.¹

Certain lease clauses are banned outright. A community owner cannot include a provision that lets someone confess judgment for you, waives your legal rights or remedies, surrenders your right to a jury trial, or allows the landlord to take possession of your home without a court order.¹ If any of these appear in your lease, they are unenforceable whether or not you signed.

Rent Increases and How to Dispute Them

A community owner must give written notice of a rent increase at least 90 days, and no more than 120 days, before the new amount takes effect. The same notice must go to the homeowners’ association if one exists and to DEMHRA.²

If the proposed increase is larger than the average annual change in the Consumer Price Index for the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City area over the preceding 36 months, the community owner has to justify it. Acceptable justifications include capital improvements (not routine maintenance), changes in property taxes, changes in utility or insurance costs, changes in operating expenses, and market rent at comparable communities. A community owner found violating a health or safety provision of the Act within the last 12 months and who has not fixed the problem within 15 days cannot impose an above-CPI increase at all.³

The Arbitration Process

When an increase exceeds the CPI threshold, DEMHRA schedules a final meeting between the community owner and affected homeowners within 30 days of the rent increase notice. The community owner can also request informal meetings beforehand.⁴

After the final meeting, any homeowner who has not accepted the increase, or the homeowners’ association on behalf of those who have not, has 30 days to petition DEMHRA to appoint an arbitrator. The hearing must happen within 60 days of the petition. Each side pays $250 toward the arbitrator’s fee, and DEMHRA covers any additional direct costs. The arbitrator issues a written decision within 15 days after the hearing closes.⁴

The arbitration is nonbinding, but it carries weight. You pay the increased rent while the process runs, so it is not a freeze. If the increase is not approved through the process, the community owner has to rebate the excess.⁴

What the Community Owner Has to Maintain

Maintenance duties are written directly into the required lease terms, which makes them non-negotiable statutory obligations. The community owner must regrade lots as needed to prevent standing water, keep common areas and vacant lots clear of noxious weeds, and make a good-faith effort to exterminate pests in common areas when infestations occur.¹

Water, electrical, plumbing, gas, sewer, septic, and any other utility systems the community owner provides have to stay in good working order. Repairs are required within 48 hours of written notice, or as soon as practicable when 48 hours is not realistic. The community owner also has to maintain the roads inside the community, comply with all applicable building codes, and clearly mark lot boundaries.¹

Two rules catch many residents by surprise. The community owner must maintain, care for, and if necessary remove any tree at least 25 feet tall or with a trunk larger than 6 inches in diameter, following standard horticultural practices. And the community owner may not enter onto, into, or under your home without your permission unless there is an emergency; non-emergency inspections of utility connections the landlord owns require 72 hours’ notice.¹

Residents also have freedom of choice in purchasing goods and services (other than utilities the community itself provides). A community owner cannot force you to buy propane, home repairs, or insurance from a particular vendor.

What You Have to Do as a Tenant

Your lease must require you to keep the exterior of your home and lot clean and sanitary, keep building materials, furniture, and similar items from being stored outside, and dispose of waste properly.¹

You must follow the community’s reasonable written rules and meet its written manufactured home standards. If a new home standard is adopted after you move in, you get nine years to bring your home into compliance. When the change is necessary to protect life or safety, the community owner can require it sooner. Someone who buys or takes transfer of a home already sitting in the community gets 90 days to meet existing standards, or until June 1 if the transfer happens between November and March. Failure to comply with home standards is a ground for eviction.¹

Security Deposits

A community owner can require a security deposit if the lease provides for one, but it cannot exceed one month’s rent unless you agree in writing to a higher amount that the lease specifies. Within 20 days after your lease ends, the community owner must give you an itemized list of claimed damages and estimated repair costs, and must return whatever portion of the deposit they are not entitled to keep.⁵

Miss that 20-day window, and you are entitled to double the amount wrongfully withheld. That penalty makes this one of the more directly enforceable protections in the Act.⁵

Changes to Community Rules

A community owner can amend an existing rule at any time, but the change does not take effect until 60 days after written notice is delivered to tenants, or a later date the amended rule specifies, whichever comes last. Within 10 days of receiving the notice, tenants can pick a committee of up to five members to meet with the community owner. At that meeting, the community owner must explain all material factors behind the change and present supporting documentation.¹

The meeting is a discussion, not a veto. The community owner does not have to withdraw the rule. The 60-day notice and mandatory explanation still create a window for organized pushback, which is where an active homeowners’ association makes a real difference.

When You Can Be Evicted

Eviction from a Delaware manufactured home community is more complicated than a standard apartment eviction because you own the home itself. The law limits eviction to specific grounds and sets different notice and cure periods depending on the reason.

Immediate Termination

A community owner can terminate your rental agreement immediately, with written notice and no chance to cure, in these narrow situations:

Clear and convincing evidence that you or a household member caused, is causing, or threatens immediate and irreparable harm to any person or property in the community.
A conviction or delinquency adjudication where the underlying conduct caused immediate and irreparable harm to someone in the community.
Clear and convincing evidence that you materially misrepresented information on your rental application in a way that would have resulted in denial.
Failure to bring your home into compliance with the community’s written home standards within the required timeframe.

Termination After Notice and a Chance to Cure

For less severe violations, you have to be warned and given a chance to fix the problem:

Disruption of quiet enjoyment. The community owner sends written notice specifying the conduct and ordering it to stop. If substantially the same conduct recurs within six months, the landlord can terminate and pursue eviction.
Poor lot or premises condition. The community owner identifies the problem in writing and gives you 12 days to fix it. If it is not fixed by then, the landlord can terminate and seek summary possession.
Nonpayment of rent. If rent (including late fees, utility charges, and the Relocation Trust Fund assessment) has not been received by the fifth day past the due date or the end of the grace period in your lease, whichever is longer, the community owner must send a written demand for payment before proceeding.

Where the Case Is Heard

Summary possession actions for manufactured home lots are filed in the Justice of the Peace Court in the county where the community is located. If a writ of possession issues and you have prepaid seven days’ worth of rent as a storage fee on or before the posting date, the court may extend the removal period by up to seven calendar days. For a home owner, those extra days can be the difference between arranging professional transport and losing the home.⁶

Organizing and Protection from Retaliation

You have an explicit right to form or participate in a manufactured home tenants’ organization. If the community has a community center available for tenant use, the community owner must make it available for association meetings about tenant rights and community matters at no extra charge.¹

Retaliation is prohibited. A community owner cannot evict you, terminate your lease, force you to move, or reduce your services because you participated in a tenants’ organization, filed a complaint, or took other protected action. Any of those actions within 90 days of your protected activity is presumed to be retaliatory. A tenant who proves retaliation can recover the greater of three months’ rent or three times actual damages, plus court costs.¹

Federal fair housing law applies to manufactured home communities as it does to any other rental housing. Community owners must make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, and services for residents with disabilities, and must allow reasonable structural modifications when necessary. Refusing a wheelchair ramp, denying an assistance animal, or imposing rules that disproportionately burden residents with disabilities violates federal law.⁷

If the Community Closes or Changes Use

A community owner who decides to close the community or change the use of the land must give all affected tenants at least one year’s notice. The notice has to inform residents of the intended change and their need to find a new location. Once notice of a change in use is given, the community owner cannot increase your lot rent.⁸

The community owner must also provide each affected tenant with a relocation plan that includes the locations of other manufactured home communities within 25 miles, housing options for older tenants and those with disabilities, government and community agencies that can help, a preliminary assessment of whether your home can be relocated, and a description of relocation and abandonment procedures. The plan must be updated every three months. If the community owner misses a quarterly update, the termination date on your lease gets pushed back by one month for each missed update.⁸

Relocation Trust Fund Payments

DEMHRA administers the Relocation Trust Fund. If you are forced to move because of a change in use and you comply with all statutory requirements, you are entitled to the lesser of your actual relocation expenses (for moving the home and existing appurtenances within a 25-mile radius) or the maximum payment allowed:⁹

Relocatable single-section home: up to $8,000
Relocatable multi-section home: up to $12,000
Non-relocatable single-section home: up to $5,000
Non-relocatable multi-section home: up to $9,000
Abandonment option, in lieu of all other benefits: $1,500 for a single-section home or $2,500 for a multi-section home

⁹

One eligibility catch trips people up. You are not entitled to any relocation benefits if you failed to pay your share of the Relocation Trust Fund assessment during your tenancy. The assessment is a small line item on your rent statement, and ignoring it can cost you thousands later.⁹

Right of First Offer When the Community Is Sold

Before selling all or part of a manufactured home community, the owner must notify the homeowners’ association, the Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association (DMHOA), and DEMHRA of the association’s right of first offer. The notice must state the price, any material conditions, and include a confidentiality statement covering the community’s operating and financial data.¹⁰

The homeowners’ association has 30 calendar days from the mailing of the notice to respond. A counteroffer at an alternative price remains valid for six months. This process gives residents a chance to buy the community collectively, though pulling together financing within those timelines is a significant practical challenge.¹⁰

What DEMHRA Does and Does Not Do

A common misconception is that DEMHRA acts as a mediator in general landlord-tenant conflicts. It does not. In rent disputes, DEMHRA’s job is limited to overseeing the process and funding arbitration costs, and it must remain neutral and cannot give legal advice to either side.¹¹ Its main functions are providing relocation assistance when communities close, administering the right of first offer when a community is sold, and facilitating the rent dispute arbitration process.¹² For maintenance complaints, eviction defense, security deposit disputes, and retaliation claims, the courts, not DEMHRA, are where those cases are resolved.

1
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 25 Chapter 70 Subchapter II
2
Justia. Delaware Code 25-7051 – Rent Increase Notice
3
Justia. Delaware Code 25-7042 – Rent Justification
4
Justia. Delaware Code 25-7043 – Rent Increase Dispute Resolution
5
Justia. Delaware Code 25-7018 – Security Deposits
6
Justia. Delaware Code Title 25 Chapter 57 – Summary Possession
7
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act
8
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 25 Chapter 70 Subchapter III
9
Delaware Administrative Code. Delaware Regulations Title 1 201 – Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Trust Fund Regulations
10
Delaware Code Online. Delaware Code Title 25 Chapter 70 Subchapter IV
11
Delaware Administrative Code. Delaware Regulations Title 1 202 – Rent Increase Dispute Resolution Procedures
12
Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Authority. Policies and Procedures