Overview

Park rules govern much of daily life in a California mobile home park, from pets and parking to landscaping, home exteriors, and what homeowners can build on their spaces. Civil Code 798.15 makes those rules part of every homeowner’s rental agreement, so they bind homeowners the same way any other term of the agreement does. The Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL), however, limits how management can change park rules, which rights those rules can’t take away, and when management can enforce them. [You’ll notice that the Legislature spells “mobilehome” as one word throughout the statutes. Most people spell it “mobile home,” and that’s how I spell it in this Fact Sheet, except when I use the law’s name or its defined terms.]

Civil Code 798.25 sets the process management must follow to change the rules for homeowners who already live in the park. For example, management must give written notice, meet with homeowners, and wait at least six months before a new rule applies to homeowners who don’t explicitly consent to it. New buyers stand in a different position. They sign the rules in effect when they move in, so a new buyer can end up bound by a rule that management hasn’t yet put through the Civil Code 798.25 process for the homeowners next door. Reasonableness also matters. Civil Code 798.56 and 798.88 allow management to end a tenancy or get a court order only for violations of reasonable rules, and Civil Code 798.23 requires management to follow the park’s rules too.

Many homeowners first run into park rules when they want to add a carport, shed, awning, or other common improvement. The annual notice that Civil Code 798.15 requires must warn homeowners that they need management’s prior written approval for improvements whenever the park’s rules or the rental agreement require it. State regulations add a separate requirement. 25 CCR 1018 requires a construction permit for most structures on a lot, and 25 CCR 1032 requires the park operator’s approval on permit applications for accessory buildings and structures, whatever the park’s rules say. At the same time, the Legislature placed certain rights beyond the reach of mobile home park rules, including those related to pets, disability accommodations, solar energy systems, cooling systems, political campaign signs, and the right to a jury trial.

This Fact Sheet explains how management changes park rules and when those changes take effect, what makes a rule enforceable, and when homeowners need management’s approval before improving their homes or spaces. It also explains why it matters whether management is ordering homeowners to change their homes or refusing homeowners’ requests to change them. It covers the rights park rules can’t override and the enforcement tools available under the MRL, including the maintenance charges Civil Code 798.36 allows, the public nuisance actions Civil Code 798.87 allows management and residents alike to bring, and the injunctions Civil Code 798.88 allows management to seek.

NOTE TO THE READER: This Fact Sheet is the second in a six-part series on homeowners’ rights under the Mobilehome Residency Law. The first Fact Sheet in the series, “California Mobile Home Park Laws: Homeowner Rights Under the Mobilehome Residency Law,” gives homeowners a broad picture of the law, from rental agreements and rent increases to evictions, home sales, and resident-owned parks. The remaining Fact Sheets in the series are:

• “How Much Can a California Mobile Home Park Raise Your Rent, Fees, and Utility Charges?”
• “Can a California Mobile Home Park Evict You or Close the Park?”
• “Selling Your Home in a California Mobile Home Park: Approval, Repairs, and Disclosures”
• “California Mobile Home Park HOAs: Which Laws Apply When Residents Own the Park?”

Key Points

Park rules shape what homeowners can do with their homes and spaces, but the Mobilehome Residency Law decides how far those rules are allowed to go. The MRL controls the process by which management can change the rules, which rules management can enforce through eviction or a court order, and which rights no rule can take away. Title 25 of the California Code of Regulations (CCR above) adds its own permit and sign-off requirements for construction on a mobile home lot, which are entirely separate from anything required in the park’s rules. The Key Points below cover each of those limits and end with the steps homeowners should take when management wrongfully imposes or changes a rule, denies an improvement, or threatens to enforce a rule against them.

• Management can change park rules only by following the process laid out in Civil Code 798.25. Because Civil Code 798.15 makes park rules part of every rental agreement, management can’t change the rules for homeowners already living in the park by posting a new rulebook or mailing out revised rules. Civil Code 798.25 first requires management to give every homeowner written notice of the proposed change at least 10 days before a meeting, and that notice must set out the proposed rule and the meeting’s date, time, and location. Management must then meet and consult with homeowners, their representatives, or both. After that meeting, the new rule applies right away to any homeowner who explicitly consents to it, and to everyone else only after at least six months’ written notice. The MRL shortens that waiting period to 60 days for rules governing recreational facilities, such as the pool or clubhouse. It also allows management to skip the meeting altogether when a new statute, ordinance, or regulation requires the rule change. In those cases, however, management must still give 60 days’ written notice and cite the specific law behind the change. And finally, Civil Code 798.25 prohibits mobile harm parks from using the rulemaking process to create new fees (i.e., fees not found in the homeowners’ rental agreements). [That limit applies only to fees that management tries to add through a rule change. The MRL allows management to add charges in other ways, such as raising rent with 90 days’ written notice under Civil Code 798.30, charging for a new service it provides after giving 60 days’ written notice under Civil Code 798.32, or including fees in the rental agreements homeowners sign. Those topics go beyond the scope of this Fact Sheet, but I may address them in a future Fact Sheet.]
  • New buyers can end up bound by rules that don’t yet apply to the homeowners already living in the park. Civil Code 798.25 governs changes to the rules for homeowners who already live in the park, but the Mobilehome Residency Law contains no matching procedure for the rules management hands to new buyers. When buyers sign their rental agreements, Civil Code 798.15 makes the rules attached to those agreements part of the rental agreements, so those rules bind buyers from the first day of their tenancies. The practical effect of this is seen all the time when mobile home parks’ management provides buyers with a new set of rules before it puts that set through the Civil Code 798.25 process for everyone else. In cases like those, buyers end up living under rules that their next-door neighbors don’t yet have to follow. Rules given to new buyers still have limits, however. For example, Civil Code 798.56 allows management to terminate tenancies only for violations of reasonable rules, and Civil Code 798.19 and 798.77 void any provision that takes away any rights that the MRL protects. Buyers should ask management for a copy of the park’s rules before they commit to buying, and Civil Code 798.74.5 requires management to provide one on request.
• Management can evict homeowners for breaking a park rule only when the rule is reasonable. Civil Code 798.56 allows management to terminate tenancies for rule violations only when the rule is reasonable. The rule must also be part of the rental agreement or an amendment to it. Before a violation can support an eviction from the park, management must give homeowners a 7-day notice of the violation. Homeowners who comply within those seven days are deemed not to have violated the rule in question. Management can, however, skip that notice if it has already given homeowners written notice of violating the same rule on three or more occasions within the prior 12-month period. And even then, Civil Code 798.56 requires management to prove that the violation occurred. The park’s rules don’t just bind residents. They bind management too. Civil Code 798.23 requires management to follow the park’s rules to the same extent that residents and their guests must, except for rules governing residents’ ages and the work management does to maintain and run the park. [Rules that rely on standards management never wrote down, or that give management unlimited discretion, give homeowners strong arguments against enforcement. Take, for example, a rule requiring management’s approval “according to the park’s standards” when no written standards exist and the rule sets no criteria, no deadline for a response, and no way to contest a denial. Homeowners have nothing to follow in advance and no way to test a denial afterward. In such cases, their best arguments are to assert that such a rule isn’t reasonable, that it’s too uncertain to enforce as a term of their rental agreements, and that management must exercise any discretion the rental agreement gives it in good faith rather than arbitrarily.]
• When the park’s rules or the rental agreement require it, homeowners need management’s written approval before improving their homes or spaces. Those approval requirements can apply to improvements such as adding a carport, shed, awning, or fence. The MRL assumes that mobile home parks will have those requirements. Civil Code 798.15 requires management to give homeowners an annual notice warning that they can’t make improvements or alterations to their homes or spaces without following the park’s rules and state and local law. The same notice must also tell homeowners that they need management’s prior written approval when the park’s rules or the rental agreement require it, and that failing to obtain such approval could be grounds for eviction.
  • Title 25 of the California Code of Regulations adds its own permit and sign-off requirements, separate from the park’s rules. The annual notice that Civil Code 798.15 requires also warns homeowners that some improvements need a construction permit from the state or local enforcement agency. 25 CCR 1018 requires that permit before anyone builds, installs, or alters most structures and equipment on a mobile home park lot. [The enforcement agency is the Department of Housing and Community Development, unless a city or county has taken over that role.] 25 CCR 1032 then requires the park operator’s approval on every permit application for an accessory building or structure, such as a carport, awning, or shed. Some projects don’t need a permit at all. 25 CCR 1018, for example, exempts small storage sheds (called “storage cabinets” in the regulation) no taller than 10 feet, with no more than 120 square feet of combined floor area on the lot, window and door awnings, fences no taller than 7 feet, patios, and minor repairs. Just remember, while those exemptions remove the permit requirement, they don’t override a park rule requiring management’s approval.
  • There is a significant legal difference between management ordering homeowners to change their homes and management refusing homeowners’ requests to change them. When homeowners ask to build or install something and management says no, the approval requirements discussed above control. Management can enforce that denial through eviction only if the rule behind it is reasonable. Different rules come into play when management orders homeowners to repair or improve their homes. In those cases, Civil Code 798.73.5 applies. When homeowners sell homes that will stay in the park, that statute allows management to require only repairs or improvements that meet three conditions: (1) the work must involve the exterior of the home or a structure on the space; (2) that structure can’t be one management owns and installed; and (3) the work must be based on a local ordinance or a state statute or regulation relating to mobile homes, or on a park rule that carries out one of those laws. [Civil Code 798.73.5 also states that the repairs and improvements management can require at the time of sale are the same ones it can require at any other time during a homeowner’s residency. Based on that language, homeowners have a solid argument that the same three conditions limit what management can order them to do at any time, not just when they sell. Under that reading, management couldn’t order homeowners to repaint their homes in a park-approved color, because no ordinance, statute, or regulation requires a mobile home to be any particular color. That argument doesn’t help homeowners whose requests management denies, because the statute addresses only work that management requires.]
• The MRL guarantees certain rights that no park rule can override. Several of those rights deal directly with what homeowners can keep, install, or display on their homes and spaces. When it comes to pets, for example, Civil Code 798.33 bars rental agreements entered into, modified, or renewed on or after January 1, 2001, from prohibiting homeowners from keeping at least one pet (although reasonable park rules still apply to those pets). Then there are disability accommodations. Provided that code and permit restrictions are followed, Civil Code 798.29.6 bars management from prohibiting homeowners and residents from installing ramps, handrails, and other accommodations for the disabled on their homes or spaces. As for political campaign signs, provided that they conform to the statute’s size and time limits (i.e., no larger than 6 square feet and displayed from 90 days before an election to 15 days after it, unless a local ordinance sets a shorter period), Civil Code 798.51 allows homeowners and residents to display them in their windows, on the sides of their homes, or on their spaces. Solar energy systems and cooling systems get similar protection. Except in master-meter parks, where the park owns the utility systems and bills homeowners for their usage, Civil Code 798.44.1 voids any restriction that effectively prohibits or restricts solar energy systems on homes or spaces. Parks can still impose reasonable restrictions that don’t significantly increase a system’s cost or decrease its efficiency. Civil Code 798.44.2 voids restrictions on air conditioners, swamp coolers, heat pumps, and other cooling systems in homes. Management can block one only by showing that the installation would violate the law, lacks a required permit, or would exceed the lot’s electrical capacity, as a government agency confirms in writing. And finally, Civil Code 798.25.5 voids any rule that management adopts on its own, without homeowners’ consent, that takes away homeowners’ right to a jury trial or forces them into binding arbitration.
  • Any park rule that takes away a right the MRL guarantees is void. Civil Code 798.15 makes the park’s rules part of every rental agreement. Civil Code 798.19 and 798.77 void any rental agreement provision in which homeowners give up their rights under the MRL. This means that homeowners don’t have to follow a park rule that takes away one of those rights even if they signed the rental agreement that contains the purported rule. Choices the MRL itself lets homeowners make are different. For example, homeowners can consent to a new rule before the six-month notice period ends, and they can agree to resolve disputes through arbitration. Those choices aren’t waivers because the MRL allows them.
• Eviction isn’t management’s only tool for enforcing park rules. Civil Code 798.36 bars management from charging homeowners fees for enforcing mobile home park rules, with one exception. When homeowners fail to maintain their spaces as the rules require, management can charge a reasonable fee to do the work itself. Management must first give homeowners written notice that identifies the specific condition to fix and estimates the charges. Homeowners then have 14 days to fix it. In any proceeding under Civil Code 798.36, management must prove that it enforced the rule in a non-discriminatory, non-selective way. Then there are court orders. Civil Code 798.88 allows management to ask a court to stop a homeowner’s continuing or recurring violation of a reasonable park rule. The court must find the violation by clear and convincing evidence, and its order can last up to three years. And finally, Civil Code 798.87 treats a substantial violation of a park rule as a public nuisance. Management, any park resident, or certain government attorneys can sue to stop it, which means that homeowners can use the same tool against neighbors who substantially violate the park’s rules.
• When management imposes, changes, or enforces a mobile home park rule, homeowners should respond in writing and keep a record of everything. Start by gathering every document you signed when you moved in, including your rental agreement, the rules attached to it, and any acknowledgment that you received them. Those documents, along with any changes management properly adopted afterward, determine which rules bind you. When management proposes a rule change, check whether it gave at least 10 days’ written notice of a meeting and then held that meeting. If you object to the change, don’t sign anything consenting to it because your consent makes the new rule apply to you right away instead of after six months. When you want to make an improvement, ask for management’s approval in writing before you build anything. If they deny or limit your request, ask management to identify the specific rule and any written standards behind its decision. Request approval first and challenge a denial afterward, rather than building first and defending against an eviction. When management accuses you of violating a rule, respond in writing, fix the problem within seven days if you can, and keep copies of every notice, letter, and photo. Civil Code 798.53 also requires management to meet with homeowners within 30 days of a written request to discuss how it interprets or enforces park rules.
• If your mobile home park changes its rules without following the MRL, denies your improvement request, or threatens to enforce an illegal rule against you, call the mobile home park attorneys at MBK Chapman. The mobile home park attorneys at MBK Chapman represent homeowners, and they know how to hold management to the limits the Mobilehome Residency Law places on park rules. Whether you need help reviewing a rule change, challenging a denial, or responding to a violation notice, contact us today.

Park rules bind homeowners because they’re part of every rental agreement. But management can’t change them at will, can’t evict homeowners for breaking unreasonable ones, and can’t use them to override the rights the MRL guarantees. Knowing which rules bind you, and why, makes it easier for you to tell the difference between legitimate requirements and illegal ones.

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