I’m wondering what experience people have with good/bad states to own parks in – specifically with respect to state laws? I know, for example, Texas is landlord-friendly but California is relatively tenant-friendly (shocker!). Are there any gotcha’s to beware of in other states that we should think about before looking at a park in another state (we are in Texas now)?
I am thinking of tenant rights in evictions, abandonments, time periods for required notices, that kind of thing – things that might make it harder to turn a park around as quickly as we would want.
I think Ohio was a mixed bag…many of the laws were favorable to the landlord as far as a simple procedure for eviction and a law was passed to help park owners with the abandoned mobile homes…but I have found that jurisdiction is everything.
I know park owners in counties where they say the eviction and abandonment process is straightforward and moves ahead at a proper pace but I have had an abandoned mobile home situation that took a year to get into court becuase the homeowner hired an attorney specifically to screw around with the case and drag it all out.
Now we have the new Ohio Manufactured Home Commission and there are set up license fees that most park owners consider excessive . I addition the set up regulations that they have put in place have caused the cost of filling lots to go up substantially
The licensing of parks has now been taken away from local health department boards and given to this commission and now I’m hearing that practices that have always been approved are now not being approved and a lot of park owners are concerned. Set up crews are now licensed by this commission as are dealers who used to be licensed by the BMV (which was terrible so maybe this is an improvement)
They have 2 employees that they have given the title of “inspector/investigator” and they are supposed to cover the entire state.
This commssion recently sent everyone an email asking us to turn in any unlicensed operator, set up crew, dealer etc so that “everyone can be on a fair playing field” and announced that the law allows them to fine anyone working in the mobile home industry a fine of $1000 per day for significant violations.
Ohio has not been a small busines friendly state and I can see that they are singling out the MHP business for “special attention”
I wonder how they are going to fund this commission hmmmmmm
“We’re from the government, and we’re here to help!”
John Hyre was telling me a few years ago that Ohio is not very landlord friendly nor MHP operator friendly, in fact our meeting took place in Fort Wayne, IN near a park that he owns in that area.
I don’t recall all the specifics of what his issues were with Ohio, but if you know John at all you can imagine him saying something about “communist left-wing regulation” or something to that effect.