“It’s important that we have protections in place to ensure that responsible and trustworthy home buyers can purchase these homes,” said Stone. “It’s unreasonable to require that they be subject to overly-restrictive standards put in place by park management.”
In the Monterey Bay area and throughout California, mobilehomes offer an affordable avenue to home ownership for many buyers, especially for seniors and fixed-income families. More than 700,000 people live in California’s 4,734 mobilehome parks.
In order to sell a mobilehome located in a park, potential buyers must be approved by park management. Home owners trying to sell their homes are therefore reliant on park management to approve the buyer so that the sale can be completed. Park management are not limited in the number of potential buyers they can reject, which places pressure on home owners to find a buyer that qualifies under the standards set in place by management. Most standards are not set or regulated by the state and can vary widely from park to park. As a result, potential buyers can be unfairly turned away.
AB 2026 requires the purchaser of the mobilehome to be presumed to have the ability to pay if he or she has been approved for a loan to buy the mobilehome. It also requires that management, upon request from a potential buyer, provide a list of information that will be used to decide eligibility for residency in the park. If the potential buyer is denied, management must provide them with the specific reason for their denial and upon request, meet with the buyer to reconsider the denial based upon any additional information available at that time.
Assembly member Stone’s website: www.asmdc.org/stone