Residents of manufactured home communities in Maine will have more protections under a new law that goes into effect Wednesday.
The law requires that the landowners of manufactured home parks give residents advance notice if they plan to sell the property. It also gives residents an opportunity to collectively make an offer on the land within two months, and secure financing to complete the purchase within three.
Margaret Jones, board president for the Mountainside Community Cooperative in Camden, advocated for the law in the Legislature earlier this year.
Mountainside purchased its land four years ago, when its former owner announced plans to retire and presented residents with the idea of collectively buying the property. But not all communities have had the same chance.
"Our community is located is down the street from Megunticook Lake and up the street from the Atlantic Ocean," Jones said. "We are in a tourist destination area. Anything could have happened."
Pat Schwebler, co-director of the New England Resident Owned Communities program for the Cooperative Development Institute, said she has seen an increase in the number of manufactured home communities changing hands.
"People are putting their properties up for sale," she said. "Of course some Mainers are investing as well, but we're seeing an awful lot of out-of-state entities as well. And with no real rent control being here in Maine, outside of Portland, they can come in and do what they will. Our communities tend to be filled with the elderly people on Social Security, single-parent households."
Jones said the residents of Mountainside, all over the age of 55, now have autonomy over their own homes and their financial security.
"We don't have people who are worrying, 'What's going to happen to me tomorrow?'" she said. "We have people who have stability of their income. They have stability of the land, and they take pride in that land."
Maine has more than 700 manufactured and mobile home parks. Advocates of the new law say it's intended to preserve an important part of Maine's affordable housing stock.
Schwebler said Maine currently has 10 resident-owned communities, where rents for those lots range from $290 to $460 a month.
"I don't know where in Maine you can own your own home for that kind of money, and not worry about a landowner kicking you out or raising your rent," Schwebler said.
