Question: We have a couple living in a nice RV in our park on a month-to-month rental agreement. They have been here for about two years, are retired, and have never had trouble paying the rent. To make a long story short, we refused their rent earlier this year in January, February and March until we resolved a dispute with them regarding their dogs. When we asked them to pay that rent, they refused because by then the statewide COVID-19 eviction moratorium had gone into effect. Can we evict them for not paying pre-COVID rent that they still owe?
One of the advantages of being a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine, is we have lots of different lawyers with many different areas of expertise. To answer the questions below, I enlisted the help of my colleague Jim Oliver, who is a lawyer with substantial experience in the insurance industry. As with all of these articles, the following should not be construed as legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is created. If you have specific legal questions or concerns, please reach out to your attorney.
Question: A man has set up a tent on one of our park’s RV spaces, with lot of garbage around the space. He did not sign any agreement – he just showed up one day. How does the landlord best deal with this situation?
Question: A month-to-month resident in our RV Park (on MHCO Form 80 - RV Agreement) is causing numerous problems for other RV residents. In one case he was verbally abusive to several children – a restraining order was issued and subsequently violated. What options do we have as the landlord to evict this tenant?
Question: Our county has entered Phase 2 of the reopening procedures for COVID-19. While we have kept the park restrooms, showers and laundry room open during the state-wide shutdown, we have kept other park facilities closed. We are still reluctant to open our swimming pool, small indoor rec center, and playground. What are we required to open and how do we safely do it?
Question: We have residents in our RV park who seem to be blatantly violating the governor’s COVID-19 emergency stay-at-home order. Some residents have outside family members or guests come by regularly, while a few other residents get together on their spaces to just “hang out” in the evenings. This has caused some concern in the park, so what can or should we do?
Question: We had a month-to-month RV tenant vacate shortly after she paid her monthly rent, and she is now demanding a refund of “unused” rent from the vacate date forward. Do we have to refund that rent?
Question: We want to raise rent for our RV tenants because we have not raised the rent in over two years. We know there are new rules, but what are they?
SB 586 was developed by the Manufactured Housing Landlord/Tenant Coalition during 19 meetings (each of approximately 3 hours) from September 2017 through February, 2019. There are several pieces to SB 586; however, this Q&A focuses on the limited mandatory mediation policy together with the $100,000 annual grant the Legislature has authorized be allocated to the Oregon Law Center to assist manufactured and floating home tenants with understanding and enforcing the Oregon Residential and Landlord Tenant Act.
As was reported by Chuck Carpenter during the Legislative session, the goal from MHCO’s perspective, was to use the coalition to get the best possible result considering the political landscape in the Legislature. Bluntly, some of the original ideas proposed by the tenants in the coalition were quite onerous. The end result, however, is a true compromise that is favorable to MHCO landlords, all things considered.
If you would like to learn more about these issues and/or you have particular questions, please join me for my presentation at the 2019 Annual Conference in October. In the meantime here are 17 questions (10 uploaded today and the remaining 7 to be uploaded next week) and answers that will get you started.
