The Wisconsin Mfd Home Owners Association  encourages you NOT to BUY a manufactured home. The building process, both on-site and in the factories, is about cutting corners—using inferior quality sheathing, cutting boards too short to meet in the center of studs—problems that promote irregular air exchange within a house and which eventually produce growth of mold and excessive heating bills. 

Additional problems:  fraud, misdealing, false statement, improper assembly, illegally based seizure of homes, defective set up, worthless warranties, and suspect consumer protection.  

If you are unfortunate enough to get caught in this malignant Pandora's Box as an unsuspecting consumer, you will find yourself immersed in an endless war that will consume the rest of your life and your life's income. You will get no satisfaction from HUD or even some legislators and state agencies because many have been corrupted by the MH industry—they have been bought off with big money and the heady power of control over millions of victims.

Few  services for residents in land-lease communities although we pay taxes

Corporate-owned parks are known for high rents and minimal-to-no services versus the Mom-&-POP MHPs.    Some privately-owned parks are decrepit dumps—because the state statute requiring park owners to maintain their property has rarely, if ever, been enforced in this state.   This will not happen unless YOU tell your State Legislator about it--with pictures.   Join and help us take these park owners to court!     Why should you be required to continue paying rent to live in a dump just because owners pocket the rent and never set up a maintenance fund?

Where do your parking fees go, and for what?

Municipalities—towns, villages, and cities—collect parking fees (excise taxes) from every MH resident, but they provide almost nothing in services.   You may be lucky to get fire department services and garbage pick up.  Generally, most municipalities abhor our existence.    When was the last time your municipality paid YOU any mind when you complained about lack of maintenance or services in your park?   

Your municipality has THE POWER OF THE PURSE via their annual renewal of MHP Operator licenses, an authority granted to them by the State.   By law, many municipalities are authorized by the state with agency status—they have the authority to suspend or deny the park owner's license for failure to maintain his property. Have they ever done that on your behalf?   WHEN was the last time you approached your Municipal Board or Common Council with proof that your MHP does not deserve to have its license renewed due to owner neglect and mismanagement????

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Talk to your local government—for starters

Attend your municipal Board or Council monthly meetings—in groups if possible. Make your presence known.   Take your complaint or comments in writing, and present them verbally.   Your municipality has direct responsibility for the habitability of your living conditions.    Get a copy of your municipal local ordinances and compare them with State Statute 704, and present this to your Board or Council.    If they are allowing a park owner to ignore inferior living conditions on his property, they can be held liable as well as the park owner.

Advantages to municipalities—none for MHP residents

Municipalities retain a larger percentage of parking fees (excise taxes) than they would if you were paying property taxes (on real property).     In general, more state aid is distributed to your municipality, school district, and county because the major state aid programs are based on the policy of tax base equalization.  The state shares in funding a portion of the costs incurred (or revenues raised) by each local government.  Aid is distributed under formulas that use a standard tax base, which is measured in per-student or per-capita terms.   Each local government's tax base, then, is compared to the standard tax base.   State aid equals the amount of revenue that would be generated by a portion of the standard tax base that each local government is missing. (Per the Wis. Legislative Fiscal Bureau)   Contact the LRB on the state website www.wisconsin.gov  if you would like a copy of this document.