Opinion ID: 2631196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: background: the mobilehome owner/mobilehome park owner relationship

Text: This case concerns the application of a mobilehome rent control ordinance, and some background on the unique situation of the mobilehome owner in his or her relationship to the mobilehome park owner may be useful. The term `mobile home' is somewhat misleading. Mobile homes are largely immobile as a practical matter, because the cost of moving one is often a significant fraction of the value of the mobile home itself. They are generally placed permanently in parks; once in place, only about 1 in every 100 mobile homes is ever moved. [Citation.] A mobile home owner typically rents a plot of land, called a `pad,' from the owner of a mobile home park. The park owner provides private roads within the park, common facilities such as washing machines or a swimming pool, and often utilities. The mobile home owner often invests in site-specific improvements such as a driveway, steps, walkways, porches, or landscaping. When the mobile home owner wishes to move, the mobile home is usually sold in place, and the purchaser continues to rent the pad on which the mobile home is located. ( Yee v. Escondido (1992) 503 U.S. 519, 523, 112 S.Ct. 1522, 118 L.Ed.2d 153.) Thus, unlike the usual tenant, the mobilehome owner generally makes a substantial investment in the home and its appurtenancestypically a greater investment in his or her space than the mobilehome park owner. (See Baar, The Right to Sell the Immobile Manufactured Home in Its Rent-controlled. Space in the Immobile Home Park: Valid Regulation or Unconstitutional Taking? (1992) 24 Urb. Law. 157, 158, fn. 13.) The immobility of the mobilehome, the investment of the mobilehome owner, and restriction on mobilehome spaces, has sometimes led to what has been perceived as an economic imbalance of power in favor of mobilehome park owners ( id. at pp. 170-182) that has in turn led many California cities to adopt mobilehome rent control ordinances (see id. at p. 182 [some 70 cities in California had adopted rent control as of 1992]).