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Answer. ORS 90.531 - 90.543 consists of a series of statutes that permit landlords to convert utility charges from base rent to a program passing them on directly to residents. ORS 90.533 expressly permits garbage collection costs to be converted to a pass-through program. In summary, it provides as follows:

1. Unilateral Amendment. You must first unilaterally amend your rental or lease agreements to remove the cost of garbage collection from your base rent and have it billed to residents by your garbage provider. You do not need tenant consent to make this amendment.

1. 180-Day Notice. You must give not less than 180 days' written notice to each resident, before converting to a garbage pass-through billing program.

1. Reduction of Rent. You are required to reduce your base rent at the time of the first billing under the new program. The rent reduction may not be less than an amount reasonably comparable to the amount of the rent previously allocated to the garbage services averaged over at least the preceding twelve (12) months. Landlords may not convert to this program sooner than one year after giving notice of a rent increase, unless the rent increase is an automatic increase provided for in a fixed term rental agreement (i.e. a lease) entered into one year or more before the conversion.

1. Twelve Months' Garbage Billing Records. Before you may first bill the residents under the new program, you must provide them with written documentation from the garbage provider showing your cost for the service during at least the twelve (12) preceding months.

1. Prohibition on Subsequent Rent Raises. During the six months following your conversion to a garbage pass-through billing program, you may not raise the rent to recover any costs of conversion to the program.

1. Common Areas. At the same time you convert to the pass-through program, you may also unilaterally convert the billing for common areas to a pro rata method that divides the cost based on the number of occupied spaces in the facility. don't forget to address this in the unilateral amendment!

Effective July 1, 2021 the process for evicting residents who have not paid rent since July 1, 2021 forward will require a new process and forms.  The necessary forms for the new non payment of rent process are attached above to this article.  These new forms ARE NOT posted under the "Form Section" of MHCO.ORG due to frequent changes mandated by the Legislature.  Do not use any forms that you downloaded prior to July 1, 2021 as those forms are out of date.  Always download forms from MHCO.ORG on the day of use to make sure you are in compliance with a frequently changing regulatory environment.

Notes on the new process and forms:

• The 10-day (formerly 72-hour) notice can only be issued after 7 days of nonpayment – so if the payment date is the first, then you’d have to wait until the 8th to issue - this did not change under HB 4401.  
  • However, as you must realize with all the legislative stuff, rents between 4-1-2020 and 6-30-21 cannot be collected before 3-1-2022.
  • And notices of nonpayment or FEDs rents for 7-2021+ can commence but (a) only with the eviction protection notice and (b) if tenant provides documentation he/she is applying for funds, the landlord or court has to wait another 60 days.  Bottom line is that residents can drag out nonpayments if they want for months is landlord's only recourse is state/federal funds)

MHCO is working on additional tools to help managers and landlords understand the new regulations.  Look for a ‘flow chart’ in early August and we will do an extensive Q&A article as questions become more apparent.

The two previous articles by Phil Querin on the new process as a result of SB282 and SB278 which are posted under "Community Updates" are probably worth reviewing now that you have the forms in hand.

This has been a long trying process – MHCO appreciates the efforts of all those involved to draft forms that are useful and accurate.  We are especially appreciative of Phil Querin's knowledge and expertise.  More information will be forthcoming in the weeks ahead.  Thank you for your patience.

Answer: HB 2639 will become effective on July 1, 2014. It applies to all housing, whether or not it is manufactured housing inside of a community. The current law provides that a landlord may not refuse to sell, lease or rent any real property to a prospective lessee or tenant based upon the following factors: - Race; - Color; - Religion; - Sex; - Sexual orientation; - National origin; - Marital status; - Familial status (i.e. children under 18 years of age); and - Source of income. Under HB 2639 "source of income" now includes federal rent subsidy payments under Section 8 and any other local, state or federal housing assistance. [However, it does not include income derived from a specific occupation or income derived in an illegal manner.] Your concern is misplaced, but you still must be careful. HB 2639 clarifies that the prohibition against discrimination does not prevent you from refusing to rent or lease real property to a prospective renter/lessee based upon their inability to pay rent. If you have a 33% rule, and consistently apply it, you should be fine. However, what you must do is to include in your 33% calculation, any moneys the applicant is receiving from other state, local, or federal assistance, including Section 8 subsidies (collectively "Government Assistance"). You may not deny an applicant solely because they are receiving Government Assistance, and you must include it in your calculations. Conclusion. It is my opinion that HB 2639 means that going forward, you should include all Government Assistance, as well as other income, when calculating your applicants' ability to pay the space rent. In other words, just because they receive Government Assistance does not mean that you may deny them occupancy. Lastly, even if they qualify under your 33% rule, after including their Government Assistance, if there are other legitimate grounds for denial, such as prior rental history or criminal record, you are still legally entitled to reject them. Please understand that this is not legal advice, and you should verify my interpretation with you own attorney.

Answer: Under the Fair Housing Act ("the Act") housing providers including landlords, are required to make reasonable accommodations to the rented facilities and common areas, if requested by a handicapped tenant or their legal occupant ('the requestor").

Landlords are entitled to obtain reasonable information from the requestor in order to assist in determining whether the requested accommodation is reasonably necessary because of the disability. If a person(s) disability is obvious, or otherwise known to the landlord, and if the need for the requested accommodation is readily apparent or known, then the landlord may not seek any additional information about the requestor's disability or the disability-related need for the accommodation. This law also applies to the use of assistance animals.

A "reasonable accommodation" is a reasonable change, exception or adjustment to a rule, policy practice or service that will enable a handicapped person to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the rented facilities and common areas. There must be an identifiable relationship between the requested accommodation and the person's disability. Landlords are not required to make requested accommodations if doing so would impose an undue financial or administrative burden upon them or fundamentally alter the nature of the landlord's operations. With respect to a person, a "handicap" means: (a) one with a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities; (b) one with a record of such impairment; or (c) one who is regarded as having such an impairment. [Juvenile offenders, sex offenders, persons who illegally use controlled substances and those with a disability whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to others, or result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, are generally not protected under the Act.]

If a landlord refuses a requested accommodation, the requestor is encouraged to have a discussion with the landlord concerning an alternative accommodation. This is a summary only and not intended to constitute legal advice. For more information, landlords, tenants and legal occupants of tenants are encouraged to consult with their attorney or a Fair Housing expert if they have any questions regarding their rights and responsibilities.

My first reaction is that what the resident is requesting is not appropriate for several reasons [and not simply because other residents do not have computers and cannot access Facebook]. Here is a sampling:

• He is asking for information that goes to business/management issues that may not be appropriate for sharing with residents, either because it is not available, it is subject to change, it may not be known, etc. Even if it is appropriate for discussion at the general meetings, I can see this forum moving in the direction of demanding more and more information than management is willing to share. The test for content is, I suppose, whether it would be a topic of discussion at open meetings.
• There should be one time and place for these meetings, and if you are not going to give up open meetings at scheduled times, then the Facebook approach is not only duplicative, but risks creating two lines of communication, one at the public meetings and the other over the Internet. You should limit the meetings to the open forum.
• Anonymity is a dangerous format for questions, since he could simply begin making up his own questions, turning the Facebook forum into an opportunity for his own private inquisition.
• I don't think I would like to see my residents' questions spread across the Internet, for business reasons. Resident meetings are not open to the public, as far as I know. Why would you do so with an Internet forum?
• Clearly, what he wants is not what the other residents want - his request for the accommodation ignores their wishes and your needs as a manager. In other words, it is administratively impossible.
• I'm sure with time I could come up with a host of other objections.

You should, of course, take this request seriously. While you want to briefly explain why you are unwilling to participate in this process, you don't want this to get into a lengthy dialogue on the matter. For example, what if you gave three reasons for declining his request? Then he files a Fair Housing claim, and you then give five reasons? It appears that you just made up two new ones. Accordingly, anything you say should be couched in "Here are some - but not necessarily all - of the reasons I cannot grant your request. The shorter the better. No need to get into a lengthy letter writing campaign.

You should definitely make a counter-proposal for the kind of accommodation you can grant - e.g. have someone take minutes of the open meetings (not recordings). He and everyone else can have the minutes for review. If anyone wants to raise a question or comment about the minutes, they may do so at the following meeting. He can select a proxy - i.e. another resident - to relay his questions and concerns at the meetings he does not want to attend.

Lastly, it appears that the rest of the residents want you present - his demand seems to want to subordinate everyone's needs to his. That is not the concept behind a "reasonable accommodation." It comes from the landlord to the requestor - not from the residents. Granting him what he wants/needs by taking minutes and allowing the proxy, reaches a far better balance for everyone involved. The residents have open meetings and he has access through the minutes and his proxy.

Answer: Here is _ 805(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act regarding communication in connection with debt collection. The following activity is prohibited: "Communication with third parties. Subject to limited exceptions, without the prior consent of the consumer given directly to the debt collector, or the express permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, or as reasonably necessary to effectuate a post-judgment judicial remedy, a debt collector may not communicate, in connection with the collection of any debt, with any person other than a consumer, his attorney, a consumer reporting agency if otherwise permitted by law, the creditor, the attorney of the creditor, or the attorney of the debt collector." The Take-Away: This law, when coupled with the general expectation of privacy that residents have, it is my opinion that a landlord should never be in the position of voluntarily disseminating personal contact information to potential creditors, or any other people for that matter - unless the tenant consents in advance. If the debt collector issues a subpoena, that's another story. But until they do, landlords should avoid voluntarily complying with requests for personal information on residents. This applies regardless of whether the third party is a debt collector.

Answer. ORS 90.531 - 90.543 consists of a series of statutes that permit landlords to convert utility charges from base rent to a program passing them on directly to residents. ORS 90.533 expressly permits garbage collection costs to be converted to a pass-through program. In summary, it provides as follows:

1. Unilateral Amendment. You must first unilaterally amend your rental or lease agreements to remove the cost of garbage collection from your base rent and have it billed to residents by your garbage provider. You do not need tenant consent to make this amendment.

1. 180-Day Notice. You must give not less than 180 days' written notice to each resident, before converting to a garbage pass-through billing program.

1. Reduction of Rent. You are required to reduce your base rent at the time of the first billing under the new program. The rent reduction may not be less than an amount reasonably comparable to the amount of the rent previously allocated to the garbage services averaged over at least the preceding twelve (12) months. Landlords may not convert to this program sooner than one year after giving notice of a rent increase, unless the rent increase is an automatic increase provided for in a fixed term rental agreement (i.e. a lease) entered into one year or more before the conversion.

1. Twelve Months' Garbage Billing Records. Before you may first bill the residents under the new program, you must provide them with written documentation from the garbage provider showing your cost for the service during at least the twelve (12) preceding months.

1. Prohibition on Subsequent Rent Raises. During the six months following your conversion to a garbage pass-through billing program, you may not raise the rent to recover any costs of conversion to the program.

1. Common Areas. At the same time you convert to the pass-through program, you may also unilaterally convert the billing for common areas to a pro rata method that divides the cost based on the number of occupied spaces in the facility. don't forget to address this in the unilateral amendment!

Answer: RVs are not treated the same as manufactured homes. They are subject to the general landlord-tenant law (as opposed to the manufactured housing side of that law). This means that if an RV tenant is renting the space on a month-to-month basis, you cannot increase the rent during the first year, and after that only with the issuance of a 90-day written notice. Also, after the first year, you cannot terminate without cause.

Answer: The answer lies squarely in ORS 90.394 (Termination of rental agreement for failure to pay rent.) In summary, the statute provides as follows:

• You deliver to the resident 72 hours' written notice of nonpayment. You would use MHCO Form 42.
• You serve or mail the notice no sooner than the eighth day of the month (assuming rent is due on the first of the month).
• The Notice would specify the amount of rent that must be paid, i.e. the six months' unpaid rent increase sum, which, at $20/month, equals $120.
• You would specify the date and time by which the resident must pay the rent to cure the nonpayment of rent default.
• Payment by a tenant who has received a notice under this section is timely if mailed to the landlord within the period of the Notice.
  • If the Notice is to be personally served on the resident, payment is timely if made within at least 72 consecutive clock hours immediately following service, as provided in ORS 90.155 (1)(a);
  • If the notice is sent by first class mail and attachment, payment is timely if made by 11:59 PM, 72 hours or 144 hours, as the case may be, after the time started to run at 11:59 on the date the Notice was both attached and mailed, as provided in ORS 90.155 (1)(c);
  • If the Notice is mailed via regular first class mail, payment is timely if made within by 11:59 PM on the sixth calendar day following the date of mailing the Notice (i.e. 72 hours plus three additional days for mailing) as provided by ORS 90.155 and ORS 90.160.
• If the resident does not pay the $120 after proper service of the 72-hour notice, your only alternative is to file for eviction under ORS 105.105 et seq. I imagine if it comes to that, the matter will be settled in the hallway at the first appearance when the resident comes to understand you mean business.

Answer 1: Generally, no. However, this isn'ta license to be rude to them. Let's start with the basics: If you are a legal 55+ community, you are not required to admit as residents, persons with children, i.e. those under the age of 18. If there are children in the community (perhaps before the facility converted to 55+, or simply because less than 20% of all spaces are occupied by persons with children), the park may do things that it could not do if it was a family park, such as prohibit children's Big Wheels and bicycles in the street. Generally, however, the best approach is to strive for 100% compliance with the 55+ laws in terms of occupancy. If you want to be a "safe" 55+ community, you will have rules that expressly say so; a rental/lease agreement that expressly says so; application and tenant home sale provisions that limit spaces to at least one occupant 55+; and generally hold yourself out in all advertising as a 55+ community. Of course, seniors are permitted to bring children (e.g. grandchildren, etc.) into the community, but the rules may place limits on the amount of time they may remain there.

Answer 2: You need to go through the formal rule change process described in the statute. A rule that is not legally enacted, isn'treally an enforceable rule. However, you should immediately issue a written notice to all residents that based upon legal advice, those rules (identifying them) that appear to be discriminatory against children, will not be enforced. If you own a family park and are concerned that your rules may appear to "target" children, you should consult with your attorney for advice on how to proceed. Note that even if your rules don't appear to target children, if they, in fact, affect the activities of children more heavily than adults, they could still be deemed to be discriminatory (e.g. occupancy limits). And if you are a family park, but you have over 80% of the spaces occupied by at least one person age 55 or over, you should ask your attorney about "converting" to become a legal 55+ community. Until you do, even though 99% of the community's spaces are occupied by seniors, you're still a family park, and subject to the anti-discrimination laws protecting children.

Answer: You are correct that ORS 90.630 may only be used to give residents notice of a violation and an opportunity to cure. This is not so say you couldn'tuse a 30-day notice in this case, but the "cure" would be for the resident to stop possessing the meth, which would be highly difficult to verify. Moreover, in many cases, the possession of meth can be accompanied by other activities that can pose health, safety, welfare, and peaceable enjoyment, issues to the other residents of your community.

ORS 90.396(1) provides in relevant part:

Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, after at least 24 hours written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the cause and specifying the date and time of the termination, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement and take possession as provided in ORS 105.105 (Entry to be lawful and peaceable only) to 105.168 (Minor as party in proceedings pertaining to residential dwellings), if:

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(f) The tenant, someone in the tenants control or the tenants pet commits any act that is outrageous in the extreme, on the premises or in the immediate vicinity of the premises. For purposes of this paragraph, an act is outrageous in the extreme if the act is not described in paragraphs (a) to (e) of this subsection [i.e. committing serious injury to persons and property in the community, etc. - PCQ], but is similar in degree and is one that a reasonable person in that community would consider to be so offensive as to warrant termination of the tenancy within 24 hours, considering the seriousness of the act or the risk to others. An act that is outrageous in the extreme is more extreme or serious than an act that warrants a 30-day termination under ORS 90.392 (Termination of rental agreement by landlord for cause). Acts that are outrageous in the extreme include, but are not limited to, the following acts by a person:

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(B) Manufacture, delivery or possession of a controlled substance, as described in ORS 475.005 (Definitions for ORS 475.005 to 475.285 and 475.752 to 475.980), but not including [Oregon marijuana exceptions - PCQ]... .(Underscore mine.)

Note that ORS 90.396(1)(f)(B) expressly says that the manufacture, delivery, or possession of a controlled substance constitutes an act that is "outrageous in the extreme." Accordingly, it is not proscribed conduct that is open to debate about whether it may be "cured" within thirty days. Illegal drug possession is considered an automatic violation of the law.

Accordingly, the use of a 24-hour notice (MHCO form # ), would be appropriate in this case. However, just because the statute and form refer to "24-hours" does not mean you must require the resident to vacate within that time. It just means you cannot give less than 24-hours' notice.

This answer assumes that the resident's possession occurred '_on the premises (i.e. the space) or in the immediate vicinity of the premises." If not, that is, while he was arrested inside the community, the possession occurred outside of the community, your reliance ORS 90.396(1)(f)(B) would be inappropriate and would likely fail.

Additionally, based on your question, I cannot tell if the resident is causing any other problems in the community. Nor can I tell if he is - or will shortly be - in jail. Assuming that he is released and comes back into the community, you could give him the 24-hour notice, but provide the time period for compliance to be a few days, which would perhaps allow him the ability to relocate, rather than be out on the street. Based upon the urgency of having him out - assuming he returns - this call is up to you.