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Yesterday afternoon the coalition bill (HB 3016) passed out of the House Human Services and Housing Committee late yesterday afternoon on a unanimous vote.  Representative Parrish (R - West Linn) will carry the bill.    I expect the bill to pass out of the House later next week.  This legislation contains language that eliminates the landlords responsibility to pay past due taxes when he or she purchases an abandoned home in their community.  The past due tax on abandoned homes" is MHCO's top legislative issue for this legislative session.   After trying to address this issue for the past 12 years we are thrilled that we are finally moving forward on an issue that is important to every community in Oregon.

Unfortunately

The resident owned a single-family home in a community governed by a homeowners association (HOA). Under the community’s rules, any construction to community properties, such as installation of a fence, must be preapproved by the HOA.

The resident’s property line backed up to the shore of a lake. His backyard was split in half by a jogging path. With the HOA’s approval, the resident fenced off the front half of his backyard, next to his house. At that time, the jogging path and unfenced area of his yard by the lake were used only by other community residents. In recent years, however, he said that the general public began using the path and the unfenced portion of his yard to sit, nap, picnic, fish, feed birds, exercise, and relieve their dogs.

In 2019, the resident asked the HOA for permission to install a new three-sided fence around the back portion of his yard between the path and the lake. The HOA denied the request, and the resident sued the HOA; the case was still pending in state court.

In the meantime, the resident was diagnosed with cancer and began chemotherapy treatments, causing his immune system to become compromised. According to the resident, his doctor told him that direct sunlight was therapeutic to his physical and psychological recovery from cancer, but only the unfenced portion of his yard next to the lake got direct sunlight.

In April 2020, the resident asked the HOA for a reasonable accommodation to allow him to install the second fence due to his disability of having an impaired immune system. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resident said his doctor now believed that it was too risky for him, due to his compromised immune system and his susceptibility to the virus, to be around people who were not part of his household. For this reason, the resident said that he and the doctor agreed that it wasn’t safe for him to use the unfenced portion of his yard. The HOA denied his request.

The resident sued, claiming that the HOA violated fair housing law by denying his reasonable accommodation request. He asked for an emergency court order allowing him to install the fence.

The court denied his request. Because the resident failed to show that he had a disability, the court said that he was unlikely to win at trial on his disability discrimination claim, so he wasn’t entitled to the emergency order to allow him to install the second fence.

Under fair housing law, an individual has a disability if he has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. The resident claimed that he suffered from a physical impairment due to his compromised immune system, which limited his major life activity of being “in close proximity to persons unknown to him.” But the resident couldn’t point to any cases—and the court found none—supporting his claim that staying away from strangers was a major life activity. Instead, the court said that this activity was outside the range of major life activities—those central to daily life such as walking, seeing, and breathing [Eastwood v. Willow Bend Lake Homeowners Association, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108389, June 2020].

Editor's Note:  This article appeared in the "Oregonian" earlier this week.  Although the article's focus is Seattle and Portland and apartment rent this debate on rent will likely generate several rent control bills in the 2017 Oregon Legislature that will likely impact manufactured home communities.  MHCO continues to monitor the political situation and educate Oregon Legislators.  However, articles like this make it certain that urban legislators will seek some form of rent control.

A Seattle city councilmember has proposed severely curtailing the amount of cash new renters need to plunk down to move in, The Seattle Times reports.

The bold move is sure to hit on a hot-button issue for renters in the Emerald City - as well as up and down the West Coast, where rents have continued to rapidly climb in recent years.

Over the past year, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco have led the nation in greatest percentage growth. Seattle's year-to-year rents increased 9.7 percent, which was four times the national rate. Portland ranked second at 9 percent and San Francisco at 7.4 percent, according to Zillow.com. Denver was fourth at 5.9 percent.

In Seattle, the average rent in June was a scorching $2,031 per month, according to Zillow.com. In Portland, it was lower, but still a sizzling $1,764 per month.

Think that's high? Keep in mind that in San Francisco, rents last month averaged nearly $3,400 per month.

Take a second for all of that to sink in. And now, back to Seattle, where City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has proposed limiting move-in fees -- including a security deposit and any nonrefundable, one-time payments -- to no more than the cost of one month's rent.

Sawant's proposal, made last week, also would require landlords to allow renters to pay their move-in fees in installments rather than immediately and in full. Landlords asking for last month's rent up front would also likewise be required to accept that sum in installments.

Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Mike O'Brien will support Sawant's proposed ordinance, they said. But Washington's Rental Housing Association, a trade group for landlords, will not.

In Oregon, state lawmakers haven't legislated any restrictions on the amount of money renters have to come up with in order to move in, according to the rental law tracking site Landlordology.

But Portland leaders have talked about other ways to help out renters.

In 2015, Portland began requiring that owners of rental properties give tenants 90 days of written notice before raising their rents by 5 percent or more, or when terminating a lease without cause.

But hitting the problem head-on - that is, putting a cap on rents - hasn't been an option in Oregon. Oregon forbids cities and counties from enacting rent control laws. But changing state law has been talked about - as recently as a 2015 town hall discussion in Portland.

-- Aimee Green and The Associated Press

By Elliot Njus | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Oregon Legislature has approved a bill that would bar landlords from holding minor marijuana convictions or medical marijuana use against prospective tenants.

The bulk of Senate Bill 970 prohibits the owners of manufactured home parks or marinas from interfering with a resident's choice of real estate agent or subletting the unit while it's up for sale in certain cases. But the marijuana provisions apply to all rentals across the state.

The bill passed with little discussion in either chamber. After winning approval in the House last week, it next heads to Gov. Kate Brown's desk for signing.

State law already specifies that landlords may only consider criminal convictions only if they will negatively affect the rental property or others living there.

Rental Housing Alliance Oregon, a statewide landlords group, opposed the marijuana provisions of the bill, saying it singled out landlords while exempting other types of background checks, such as for employment.

Asking the landlord

Attached is a copy legislation impacting manufactured home communities.  Many of these legislative concepts we have seen before in past sessions.  Of specific interest is SB 586 which is the coalition bill.  This bill will be completely revised in February.  The other priority bill is the rent control bill - SB 608.  MHCO will be monitoring all the bills listed in the legislative report and additional legislative proposals that will be trickling out between now and the end of February. 

Answer. There are several that come into play:

• A tenant may terminate a rental agreement upon written notice if the tenant provides the landlord with proof of official orders showing that the tenant is:

(a)Enlisting for active service in the Armed Forces[1] of the United States;

(b)Serving as a member of a National Guard or other reserve component or an active service component of the Armed Forces of the United States and ordered to active service outside the area for a period that will exceed 90 days;

(c)Terminating active service in the Armed Forces of the United States;

(d)A member of the Public Health Service of the United States Department of Health and Human Services detailed by proper authority for duty with the Army or Navy of the United States and: (A) Ordered to active service outside the area for a period that will exceed 90 days; or (B) Terminating the duty and moving outside the area within the period that the member is entitled by federal law to the storage or shipment of household goods; or

(e)A member of the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ordered to active service outside the area for a period that will exceed 90 days.

• Termination of a rental agreement is effective on the earlier of:

1. A date determined under the provisions of any applicable federal law; or (b) The later of: (A) 30 days after delivery of the notice; (B) 30 days before the earliest reporting date on orders for active service; (C) A date specified in the notice; or (D) 90 days before the effective date of the orders if terminating duty described under subsection (1)(d)(B) of this section or terminating any active service described in this section.

• A tenant who terminates a lease on account of the reasons listed above is not: (a) Subject to a penalty, fee, charge or loss of deposit because of the termination; or (b) Liable for any rent beyond the effective date of the termination.

[1] "Armed Forces of the United States" means the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps or Navy of the United States.

Answer. Caveat: I am answering this question as a hypothetical situation, and no intent is made to render a legal opinion about an actual situation. Here are my thoughts:

1. Owner No. 1, who had knowledge of the situation has potential liability to the affected residents and Owner No. 2. Intentional non-disclosure of material information is fraudulent and actionable. While it would be important for Owner No. 1 to disclose the condition to residents, it is a habitability situation, and, given the materiality, not waivable. In other words, unless and until the instability issue is resolved, the space should not be rented out, and Owner No. 1's liability for placing a home on the space is not reduced by disclosing it.

A more difficult issue is whether Owner No. 1 has liability to other residents who are not affected by the unstable ground, but claim that they would not have rented a space in the community had they known of the issue. If, after a thorough evaluation of the entire community, it is determined that the instability is limited exclusively to one area, I submit that disclosure to existing non-affected and new residents is still the wisest course, and likely would entail no liability to Owner No. 1. But non-disclosure leaves open the door for residents, new and existing, to claim that they cannot sell their homes because the community has been stigmatized.

1. As for Owner No. 1's liability to Owner No. 2, it would be based primarily upon the principle of indemnification. Although much depends upon the terms of sale (e.g. how broad was the "AS-IS" clause?)[1], I would like to say that Owner No. 2 should have no liability to the residents, since he was completely unaware of the adverse condition. But law and life are never so simple.

First, Owner No. 2 now has the absolute duty of providing safe and habitable premises to the residents, i.e. the space and common areas. As a landlord, he assumed this risk, and will likely have direct liability to the residents - even though he had no forewarning of the problem. From a public policy standpoint, the law would say he was in the best position to insure against these risks, as they are a cost of doing business.

However, since Owner No. 1's non-disclosure was a material (e.g. would he have purchased the property had he known?) Owner No. 2 would likely seek recovery against him for the fraudulent concealment.

[1] Although I have seen very broad "AS-IS" clauses in commercial transactions, they are normally couched in terms of the buyer assuming all risks of loss for matters about which neither side is aware. I do not believe the clause can be used to shield a seller from intentional non-disclosure of material issues. In other words, at the time of agreeing to "AS-IS" language in the sale agreement, a buyer has a right to believe the seller has disclosed all material information.

As of July 1, 1992, all manufactured home communities renting space for manufactured dwellings have been required to provide prospective and existing tenants with a Statement of Policy. The applicants must receive their Statement of Policy before signing the rental agreement. Existing tenants who have not previously received a copy of the Statement of Policy and are on month-to-month rental agreements must receive their copy at the time the next 90-day rent increases notice is issued (ORS 90.510(3)(b). All other existing tenants shall receive a copy of the statement of policy upon expiration of their current rental agreement and before signing a new agreement.

While a Statement of Policy is not technically a contract, it is an important document. A tenant or rental applicant who makes their decisions or changes their position in reliance upon the policies set forth in the statement may be entitled to hold the landlord to those written policies. As proof of delivery of the Statement of Policy to tenants or applicants, it is advised to get a signed receipt.

A landlord who intentionally and deliberately fails to provide a Statement of Policy as required by ORS 90.510, or delivers a legally defective one, may be subject to a lawsuit.

The Statement of Policy is required to include the following information in summary form:

1. The location and approximate size of the space to be rented.
2. The federal fair housing age classification and present zoning that affect the use of the rented space.
3. The facility policy regarding rent adjustment and a rent history for the space to be rented. The rent history must, at a minimum, show the rent amounts on January 1 of each of the five preceding calendar years or during the length of the landlord's ownership, leasing or subleasing of the facility, whichever period is shorter.
4. All personal property, services and facilities to be provided by the landlord.
5. All installation charges imposed by the landlord and installation fees imposed by government agencies.
6. The facility policy regarding rental agreement termination including but not limited to closure of the facility.
7. The facility policy regarding facility sale.
8. The facility policy regarding informal dispute resolution.
9. Utilities and services available, the person furnishing them and the person responsible for payment.
10. If a tenants' association exists for the facility, a one-page summary about the tenants' association that shall be provided to the landlord by the tenants' association and shall be attached to the statement of policy.
11. Any facility policy regarding the removal of a manufactured dwelling, including a statement that removal may impact the market value of a dwelling. 

H.R. 650 Clears Key Hurdle in U.S. House

The House Financial Services Committee today passed H.R. 650, bipartisan legislation to protect the availability of financing for manufactured homes.  Introduced by Representatives Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Terri Sewell (D-AL), Andy Barr (R-KY), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), the bill protects the ability of manufactured home customers to buy, sell and refinance manufactured homes, the largest form of unsubsidized affordable housing in the nation.

H.R. 650 is cosponsored by 41 members of the House of Representatives.  Click here to see the current cosponsor list.  In addition to MHI, H.R. 650 is supported by the National Association of Realtors, Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions.

During the Committee's consideration of the legislation, the bill's champions discussed the importance of H.R. 650 to working families across America. Representatives Fincher (R-TN), Pearce (R-NM), Neugebauer (R-TX), Sinema (D-AZ), Barr (R-KY), Hensarling (R-TX), Hill (R-AR), Stivers (R-OH), and Love (R-UT) spoke in favor of the bill during the debate. Representatives Ellison (D-MN) and Waters (D-CA) spoke in opposition to the bill.  Click here to watch the bill debate (starts at 4:09).

In his remarks, Representative Fincher emphasized the bipartisan efforts to move the bill through the process: "This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue, it is an affordability of housing issue for rural America. We cannot forget about rural America - these are my constituents and many of yours."

The final Committee vote was 43 in favor and 15 opposed.  Click here to see the Committee Roster of the vote.  The bill was considered at the first markup of the 114th Congress to make changes to the Dodd Frank Act. Ten other bipartisan bills - all designed to help strengthen the economy and consumer choice by relieving harmful regulatory burdens imposed by Washington - were also passed.

H.R. 650 is now ready for consideration by the full House of Representatives. In addition, a companion bipartisan bill (S. 682) has been introduced in the Senate by Senators Donnelly (D-IN), Toomey (R-PA), Manchin (D-WV), and Cotton (R-AR).