Freddie Mac announced on September 13 that, effective immediately, all future manufactured housing community transactions will include new tenant protections that exceed current state and local requirements.
According to the announcement, Freddie Mac will now require the following tenant protections in future MHC transactions:
- One-year renewable lease term, unless there is good cause for non-renewal
- 30-day written notice of rent increases
- Five-day grace period for rent payments and the right to cure defaults on rent payments
- Right to sell the manufactured home to a buyer that qualifies as a new tenant in the community, without having to first relocate it out of the community
- Right to sell the manufactured home in place within 30 days after eviction by the community owner
- Right to sublease, or assign the pad site lease, for the unexpired term to the new buyer of the tenant’s manufactured home without any unreasonable restraint, so long as the new buyer or sublessee qualifies as a new tenant within the community
- Right to post “For Sale” signs that comply with community rules and regulations
- Right to receive at least 60-days’ notice of planned sale or closure of the community
The announcement further states: “Freddie Mac will also continue to purchase loans for resident-owned manufactured housing communities (MHROCs) where residents manage their community collectively through a cooperative, corporation, or other similar legal framework. Given their self-governance structure, these loans are likely to already have meaningful tenant pad lease protections.”
These protections are intended to support people who own their homes but lease the pads on which they sit. Protections similar to the ones announced by Freddie Mac and some that go further were was recently proposed by Representative Cynthia Axne (D-IA) in the “Manufactured Housing Tenant’s Bill of Rights” (see Memo, 05/24).
Read the announcement at: https://bit.ly/3Afbh5v
More information about manufactured housing is on page 6-17 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocate’s Guide.