Running a residential park

Committees

A residential park can have 1 home owners' committee. The committee is formed by an election organised by home owners of the park.

The function of a home owners' committee is to liaise and work with the park owner on behalf of the home owners about the day-to-day running of the park and any complaint or proposal about the operation of the park raised by home owners.

If the home owners' committee at your park sends you a complaint or proposal, you must respond in writing to the committee within 21 days of receiving the written notice.

Find out more about home owners' committees in residential parks.

Rent

As the residential park owner, you set the rent for each park site and must ensure rent details are clearly stated in each site agreement.

To increase or decrease rents, you must follow the process below as outlined in the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003.

Rent payments

Rent can be paid by one of the following approved methods, at a place that must be stated in the site agreement:

  • cash
  • cheque
  • deposit to a financial institution account nominated by you
  • credit card
  • EFTPOS
  • deduction from pay, pension or other benefit
  • another method agreed on between the parties.

Rent receipts

If a home owner pays by cash you must give them a rent receipt. You must also provide a rent receipt if the home owner requests one when paying by cheque.

If an electronic payment is made, you must give a site rent record within 7 days of a home owner's request.

Site rent increases covered by site agreement

As the park owner, you can propose an annual general increase in site rent based on an increase method specified in the site agreement.

A site agreement may allow for a site rent increase using multiple bases, but only 1 basis may be used at a time.

You must ensure that the basis for calculating any site rent increase is 1 of the following approved increase methods:

  • CPI increase
  • stated percentage increase
  • a fixed dollar amount
  • an amount worked out by apportioning, in a stated way, the relevant rates increase for the residential park among the home owners for the residential park
  • an amount that is the greater of the amounts under any 2 of the bases prescribed under points 1 to 4
  • an amount that is the lesser of the amounts under any 2 of the bases prescribed under points 1 to 4
  • an amount that is the sum of the amounts worked out using any 2 of the bases detailed under points 1 to 4.

Restrictions on increasing site rent

Despite any basis stated in the site agreement for increasing the site rent, you must not increase the site rent by more than the greater of either:

  • CPI
  • 3.5%.

General increase day

All general site rent increases must occur on the general increase day, which is a day nominated by you for that basis. A general site rent increase for a site can't occur more than once a year.

You must notify residents of any proposed general increase in site rent. You must provide this notice to the home owner at least 35 days before the nominated general increase day.

The home owner has 28 days to dispute the increase in writing through the dispute resolution procedures.

Site rent increases to cover special costs

In certain circumstances, you may increase site rents in a residential park to cover special costs using methods not contained in the site agreement.

There are 3 types of special cost:

  • operational costs – a significant increase in the cost of running a park such as rates, taxes or utility costs for the park
  • repair costs – the cost of significant repairs to common areas or communal facilities in the park that you couldn't have reasonably foreseen
  • upgrade costs – the cost of significant upgrades to common areas or communal facilities in the park.

You must notify residents of any proposed increase in site rent to cover special costs. You must provide this notice to home owners at least 2 months before the proposed date of the rent increase.

If you issue the special increase notice (Form 13) to the home owners for at least 4 sites in your park and at least 75% of the home owners notified, respond in agreement with the special increase, then all of the home owners in the park are taken to have agreed to the site rent increase and the increase may proceed.

A home owner may disagree with the proposed special increase notice by responding to the notice and indicating their disagreement, or by not responding at all.

If you do not receive a minimum of 75% approval from the notified home owners in the park, the proposed increase cannot go ahead and the increase proposal is considered to be in dispute.

You may wish to issue notices to home owners who disagreed with the proposed increase, to try and negotiate a resolution of dispute.

If the matter is unable to be resolved by negotiation or mediation, you can apply to the Tribunal (QCAT) for an order about the proposed increase.

Decreasing site rent

A home owner can apply to QCAT seeking a reduction in their rent when:

  • the quality of your residential park's common areas and shared (communal) facilities have decreased substantially
  • you remove a shared (communal) facility or service that you provided when the site agreement started
  • a shared (communal) facility or service as described in advertising, or in another document made available to the home owner before they entered the site agreement, has not been provided in the residential park.

You may reduce a home owner's rent if:

  • a utility charge included in the rent becomes separately measured or metered and the home owner has to pay separately for the use of the utility
  • a utility stops being available to the home owner through no fault of their own.

Utilities

In most cases, utilities in residential parks are not included in the site rent. These are generally paid for separately by the home owner to the park owner.

You cannot charge more for the supply of a utility to residents than the actual cost charged to you by your supply authority.

In the case of electricity supply, only the actual cost of the electricity can be passed on to the home owner and no extra fees or charges can be added to their electricity bill.

Park owners who charge in excess of the cost of a home owner's supplied electricity may be in breach of the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003 and penalties may apply.

You can include a component cost in the site rent to cover the cost of providing electricity and maintaining the electricity network or other infrastructure charges. This should be explained in the site agreement.