A guide to WA’s mobile home tenant protections and dispute program
November 20, 2024 at 10:29 a.m.
... by Farah Eltohamy / CascadePBS.org
Have a grievance with your landlord? Officials and advocates share resources and best practices for knowing your rights and filing complaints.
For nearly 20 years, mobile home owners across Washington have been filing complaints with their landlords through the state Attorney General’s Manufactured Housing Dispute Resolution Program — one of the few programs of its kind in the nation.
The program — which facilitates negotiations between tenants and their landlords — has seen complaints surge in recent years as corporate investors have consolidated Washington mobile home park ownership in many places. Under new management, mobile homeowners have reported living under the constant threat of “economic eviction” — being priced out of what was once considered a reliably affordable housing option in many communities.
A desk covered in notes and research from the the fight to enact tenant protections into state and local law. Tenants testified before the state legislature in Olympica and the Aberdeen City Countil, and have helped put some local protections in place. (Genna Martin/Cascade PBS)
In this guide, Cascade PBS shares information on state protections, tenant-landlord rights and the complaint process surrounding living in mobile home communities. Tenants with urgent concerns should consider contacting an attorney or the Northwest Justice Project. Story tips about unsafe or unlawful mobile home park practices can be shared with investigations editor at jacob.jones@cascadepbs.org or reporter farah.eltohamy@cascadepbs.org.
What information should I know before I file a complaint?
The Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act, or RCW 59.20, outlines the state’s legal protections and party responsibilities as applied to mobile home park communities. In 2007, the Washington Legislature established the dispute resolution program and empowered the state Attorney General’s Office to enforce the MHLTA.
In this program, the Attorney General’s Office serves as a neutral third party — representing neither the landlord nor the tenant. Instead, the office looks at a case strictly through the context of the MHLTA and from there determines if a party is acting in violation of the law.
That said, tenants are the ones who are overwhelmingly relying on the program for their housing disputes. In 2023, a total of 731 tenants filed complaints, in comparison to just three from landlords.
The program helps tenants who own their homes but pay rent for the lots that the homes sit on. Those who pay rent for the homes themselves are instead covered by RCW 59.18, the Residential-Landlord Tenant Act.
What protections do I have under the MHLTA?
State law imposes guidelines on how often a landlord can raise rent or charge fees, but it does not limit those increases. It also prohibits evictions without cause, landlord restrictions on tenant discussion of park issues, and interfering with the sale of a tenant’s mobile home.
Additional protections codified into law, as outlined by the AGO, include:
- Rental of a mobile home lot must be agreed upon in writing by both parties before a tenant moves in.
- The rental agreement must contain all of the following items: terms of payment, landlord information, service & fees, park rules, deposit, property boundaries, zoning, future of the park and the rental amount for the past five years.
- A landlord cannot make a tenant waive any of their rights outlined by the MHLTA.
- Landlords are required to keep a park’s common areas “reasonably” clean and safe, keep roads in good condition, maintain all utilities, and obey ordinances, statutes and regulations applicable to the park.
Landlords also cannot retaliate against a tenant for filing a complaint or for organizing with other residents. Ishbel Dickens, a retired attorney and longtime mobile homeowner rights advocate, emphasized that any sign of retaliation would warrant immediately filing an additional complaint.
"They should feel super-confident that filing a complaint is absolutely within their rights," Dickens said. "They should do it for anything that they think their landlord is violating [in] the statue."
What issues can I report to the MHDRP?
According to the program’s most recent report to the state legislature, the AGO has divided complaints into the following categories:
- Utilities
- Amount of rent increase
- General maintenance
- Rental agreements
- Fees
- Notice of rent raise
- Rules enforcement
- Notice of sale of mobile home park
- Eviction issues
- Health, safety and sanitation
- Permanent structures
The Western Plaza Senior Mobile Home Park in Tumwater in 2023. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)
Where can I access complaint data?
The AGO has made consumer protection data public, including complaints made through the MHDRP. Tenants can view complaints made against their landlord by typing the name of their mobile home park, the park’s management company or the address of their management company in the search bar. For example, more complaints for Washington-based landlord Hurst & Son LLC show up under “585 Bethel Ave Ste 202” rather than just under the company name.
How do I get started?
You can submit a complaint to the MHDRP through an online form. Complaints (and all supporting documents) can also be scanned and emailed to MHDR@atg.wa.gov.
To file a hard-copy complaint, you can print a copy of the form here, or call the AGO toll-free at 1-866-924-6458 to send you a form in the mail. Call center hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
You can mail your complaint form to the following address:
MANUFACTURED HOUSING DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROGRAM
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE
800 FIFTH AVE., SUITE 2000
SEATTLE, WA 98104
It’s important to note that complaints filed to the dispute resolution program are not anonymous. The AGO will notify your landlord or management company of the complaint, and the information in your forms can be subject to public record disclosure.
AGO spokesperson Brionna Aho said tenants do not have to review the MHLTA in order to report an issue.
“They can write a short narrative detailing their situation and program staff will determine whether there may be a violation of the MHLTA to determine program services,” she wrote in an email statement. Tenants should, however, provide copies (not originals) of supporting documents to further build their case.
Anne Sadler, president of the Washington Association for Manufactured Homeowners, recommends that tenants maintain all their interactions with their landlord over email — so that it’s documented and time-stamped.
When can I expect an outcome for my case?
Every case moves on its own timeline — the most important thing you can do is be persistent and follow up regularly with the AGO.
Given the nature of the program, tenants can expect a back-and-forth with either their landlord or an attorney hired by their landlord. Keep an eye for any responses from your landlord, and reply within 15 days. Complaints in the program often close without a resolution if a tenant stops engaging with the mediation process.
If you need help making sense of jargon, reach out to local organizing groups such as AMHO for assistance.
Aho from the AGO’s office said program staff can also provide educational presentations upon request, and can explain to tenants the complaint process, their rights and landlord obligations under the MHLTA. Those interested can email MHDR@atg.wa.gov.
If an issue persists at your park, advocates like Sadler and Dickens encourage tenants to host “complaint writing parties” to help identify your community as a priority for the Attorney General’s Office.
For example, tenants from Leisure Manor Estates in Grays Harbor County were able to hold off rent and fee increases at their park after submitting coordinated complaints documenting their shared concerns.
What does organizing look like?
The most common example of organizing in the manufactured housing space is through forming tenants’ associations. By sharing information and resources, tenants can collectively address grievances and pressure public officials.
With Attorney General-elect Nick Brown assuming office soon, Dickens said tenants’ associations can work to make this a key issue at the start of his administration.
How likely is it that the AGO will rule in my favor?
The program primarily seeks to resolve landlord/tenant disputes through voluntary compliance. If the AGO finds a serious law violation or a party fails to abide by the resolution process, the program can seek enforcement actions. In one of the AGO’s most significant enforcement actions, it took the owners of Beacon Charters RV Park to Pacific County Superior Court and ordered them to pay nearly $1 million in civil penalties after a series of unlawful evictions and utility shut-offs.
Dickens emphasized that while the program has proven to be quite effective, it’s still underfunded and understaffed — especially in recent years.
“If they’re getting a lot of complaints coming in, it just is going to take time for them to go through them,” she said. “They’ve got assistants and they’ve got coordinators, but there’s only one assistant [attorney general] there to represent tenants if it gets to that point — where they can’t settle the complaint with the landlord that needs further investigation.”
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Watch a Cascade PBS documentary by Natalie St. John and Jaelynn Grisso, which explores how one ownership group has bought up mobile home park communities statewide and raised rents, straining low-income residents: Priced Out: Fear and resistance in WA mobile home parks. Here is the link to the documentary: https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2024/11/priced-out-fear-and-resistance-wa-mobile-home-parks
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