Letter: Changes needed to correct predatory rent increases

I would like to thank the entire Legislature for all of its efforts to stop predatory pricing practices by landowners against homeowners living in manufactured housing on leased land.

The Rent Justification Law passed in 2014 has provided homeowners a way to contest the landowner’s predatory pricing practices. In addition, HB-46 - the law that will establish a legal defense fund for homeowners - will help to place homeowners on a more level playing field when it come to litigating predatory price increases inflicted by landowners. However, these changes simply address a symptom of the real problem, which is the current Rent Justification Law is so ambiguous that it allows landowners to continue to inflict predatory practices against the homeowners living on their leased land.

The law’s intent/purpose is to require that landowners justify their increases, ensure that pricing increases are reasonable and that landowners receive a fair return on their investment. Unfortunately, the ambiguity within the law allows landowners to continue their predatory practices unabated. The courts have made decisions not based on the intent of the law, but based on the ambiguous wording within the law, e.g., capital improvements in perpetuity.

There are no management controls that would require landowners to actually justify rent increases before they go into effect. If homeowners wish to contest the increases, they are forced into an arduous and lengthy arbitration/court process that takes years to come to a decision. Delaware’s attorney general has decided that rent justification cases are not within her jurisdiction, so landowners do pretty much whatever they want.

The task force that was put together to improve the law was only able to address primarily technical correction to the law - leaving the more substantive issues on the table with no action taken.

Changes to the law must be made to finally protect the homeowners, such as no capital improvements in perpetuity, landowners must show their ROI has gone down to increase rent, homeowners must have the right of first refusal when communities are sold, the DOJ should review the landowners’ justification before increases go into effect -  to name a few changes that would help to even the playing field.

Remember that by not changing the current ambiguous law, legislators are aiding and abetting the landowners to continue their predatory practices. Please consider making changes to the law so 50,000 Delaware constituents living in leased-land communities are treated fairly.

Landowners do not need more money since they have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past several years to sway legislators to vote for legislation that is favorable to them. To continue to allow landowners to make more money at the expense of primarily poor, old and sick tenants living in low-cost housing is an abomination that must be corrected. Delaware as the First State should take the lead in being the First State to pass comprehensive legislation addressing fair laws related to manufactured housing on leased land.

Rob Weymouth
Rehoboth Beach