Arkansas Mobile Home Park Laws

Arkansas Mobile Home Park Laws — Lot Rent and Evictions (2026)

By Oleg Kachko · Updated August 22, 2026

✓ Law Verified August 2026

Arkansas mobile home park laws are their own world: you own the home, you rent the ground, and a separate set of rules, different from ordinary landlord-tenant law, decides what the park can charge, when it can evict, and what happens if the land is sold out from under the whole community. This guide covers those rules in plain English, verified against official Arkansas sources as of August 2026.

Arkansas Mobile Home Park Laws at a Glance

The law that governs parks NONE — Arkansas has no separate mobile home / manufactured home park act; lot tenancies fall under the Arkansas Residential Landlord-Tenant Act of 2007, Ark. Code Ann. §§ 18-17-101 through 18-17-913, plus the unlawful detainer statutes at Ark. Code Ann. §§ 18-60-301 through 18-60-312, Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-111 (manufactured/mobile homes on leased land), and Arkansas Department of Health Rules Pertaining to Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Parks (007.04.07 Ark. Code R. 001, Part 138)
Notice before a lot rent increase UNVERIFIED as a park-specific rule — Arkansas has no statute requiring advance notice of a lot rent increase. In practice, for a month-to-month lot tenancy the park generally must first terminate or change the tenancy with 30 days written notice under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-704 before a higher rent can take effect; during a fixed-term written lease the rent cannot be raised mid-term unless your lease allows it. Check your written lease first — any longer notice it promises is enforceable against the park.
Cap on lot rent increases NO CAP — Arkansas sets no percentage limit on lot rent increases, and Ark. Code Ann. § 14-16-601 (counties) and Ark. Code Ann. § 14-54-1409 (cities) forbid any Arkansas city or county from adopting rent control, so no local cap can be enacted either. Arkansas has nothing comparable to New Jersey’s 3.5 percent or Oregon’s roughly 6 percent lot-rent caps.
Eviction notice periods Nonpayment of lot rent — rent must be unpaid more than 5 days past the due date, then a 3-day written notice to quit and demand for possession under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-304(3) before an unlawful detainer suit is filed. Lease or park-rule violation — 14 days written notice specifying the breach under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-701, with termination on a date not less than 14 days after you receive it. Ending a month-to-month lot tenancy without cause — 30 days written notice under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-704. Criminal “failure to vacate” under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-101 — 10 days written notice to vacate; note this criminal route was declared unconstitutional by the Pulaski County Circuit Court (Sixth Judicial Circuit) in State v. Artoria Smith on January 20, 2015, but remains printed in the code, so if you are charged criminally over rent you should get a lawyer immediately. Arkansas law bars self-help: the park cannot lock you out, tow or block your home, or cut utilities without a court order.

Why Park Living Has Its Own Rulebook in Arkansas

In Arkansas you have two separate legal statuses that most apartment renters never face — you own the manufactured home as your property, but you are only a month-to-month or fixed-term tenant of the dirt under it, and no Arkansas statute gives that arrangement any special protection.

The park is treated as an ordinary landlord and the lot as ordinary leased ground, so the written lease and park rules control almost everything: rent amount, rent increases, rules changes, and non-renewal.

That means a 30-day termination notice under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-704 can end your right to keep a home you own on that lot, leaving you to move a house that may cost thousands to relocate or to sell it at a loss to the park. Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-16-111 adds a separate track: if the home sits unoccupied and lot rent is 60 or more days past due, the park must send written certified-mail notice to you and to your lienholder before proceeding, which is one of the few manufactured-home-specific protections in Arkansas law.

Many residents can strengthen their position by insisting on a written lease with a fixed term and a stated renewal/rent-change procedure, since Arkansas will enforce what the lease says far more readily than any statutory floor.

Owning the home while renting the ground under it creates a kind of leverage no apartment landlord has: moving a manufactured home typically costs thousands of dollars, and many older homes cannot be moved at all without falling apart.

Lawmakers know that “just move” is not a real option for park residents, which is exactly why Arkansas mobile home park laws give lot renters protections apartment tenants never get, limited eviction grounds, longer notice periods, and rules about what happens when the park itself changes hands.

Lot Rent Increases: Your Rights Before You Pay More

Required notice: UNVERIFIED as a park-specific rule — Arkansas has no statute requiring advance notice of a lot rent increase. In practice, for a month-to-month lot tenancy the park generally must first terminate or change the tenancy with 30 days written notice under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-17-704 before a higher rent can take effect; during a fixed-term written lease the rent cannot be raised mid-term unless your lease allows it.

Check your written lease first — any longer notice it promises is enforceable against the park.

Is there a cap? NO CAP — Arkansas sets no percentage limit on lot rent increases, and Ark. Code Ann. § 14-16-601 (counties) and Ark. Code Ann. § 14-54-1409 (cities) forbid any Arkansas city or county from adopting rent control, so no local cap can be enacted either. Arkansas has nothing comparable to New Jersey’s 3.5 percent or Oregon’s roughly 6 percent lot-rent caps.

Whatever the number on the notice, read it against the rules above before paying. An increase served with short notice, or one that violates a cap where Arkansas has one, is challengeable, and park residents who organize respond far more effectively than neighbors acting alone. Many states saw lot-rent fights turn into new legislation in the last two years for exactly this reason.

The Park Cannot Evict You for Just Any Reason

Arkansas does NOT limit park eviction to a short list of “just causes” the way most park acts do. A park may proceed for nonpayment of lot rent, material noncompliance with the lease or park rules under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-701, criminal or drug activity or maintaining a public nuisance on the premises under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-17-901, holding over after the lease term ends, or simply not renewing a month-to-month lot tenancy with 30 days notice under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-17-704 — no reason required for that last one. Because “no cause” non-renewal is legal, your strongest protection is usually contractual, and you may be able to defend on grounds that the notice was defective, the rent was actually paid, or the park is retaliating for a health-department complaint — check with your district court.

This list matters enormously: it means a park in Arkansas cannot simply non-renew you to free up the lot the way an apartment landlord might. If an eviction notice arrives, check it against the legal grounds first, park evictions fail in court most often because the stated reason is not on the list, or the notice skipped a required warning step.

If the Park Sells or Closes

When the park is sold: NONE — Arkansas gives lot renters no advance notice of a park sale, no right of first refusal, no opportunity to make a competing offer, and no resident-cooperative purchase statute.

A new owner in Arkansas takes the park subject to existing written leases, so a fixed-term written lease is generally the only thing that survives a sale; a month-to-month lot tenancy can be ended by the buyer on 30 days notice under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-17-704, and lot rent can be raised without any percentage limit once that notice period runs.

When the park closes: NONE — Arkansas requires no minimum months of closure or land-conversion notice, provides no relocation assistance fund, and mandates no dollar payment toward moving or abandoning your home. The only notice a resident is legally owed on closure is the ordinary tenancy-termination notice, 30 days for a month-to-month lot tenancy under Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-704, or whatever longer period the written lease requires.

Arkansas has no counterpart to the relocation-payment statutes several other states adopted in 2024-2026.

Fees the Park Can and Cannot Charge in Arkansas

Arkansas law places no specific limits on manufactured-home park fees — there is no statutory ban or cap on entry fees, exit or transfer fees, sale-of-home commissions, guest fees, pet fees, late fees, or utility submetering markups, so these are governed by your written lease. The one related statutory limit is the security deposit ceiling of two months rent under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-16-304, with return and itemization due within 60 days under Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-16-305; that subchapter does not apply to a landlord who owns five or fewer rental units unless managed by an agent for a fee (Ark. Code Ann. § 18-16-303), so many small parks are exempt.

If the park bills you for water or sewer, ask in writing for the underlying utility bill and the allocation method, since undisclosed markups may be challengeable as a lease or deceptive-trade-practices issue — check with your court or Legal Aid.

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The park’s side of the bargain: The park’s core physical duties come from the Arkansas Department of Health Rules Pertaining to Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Parks (007.04.07 Ark.

Code R. 001, Part 138), which require a permitted park, an approved safe potable water supply to each mobile home space, an adequate and approved sewage system with connection to a public sewer where one is accessible within 300 feet, sewer connections of at least 3 inches inside diameter sloped between one-eighth and one-quarter inch per foot, plan review and Health Department approval before a park is built or remodeled, plus refuse handling, drainage, and general sanitation of common areas.

Separately, for leases entered into or renewed after November 1, 2021, Ark.

Code Ann. § 18-17-502 (Act 1052 of 2021) sets implied quality standards — available potable and hot and cold running water, electricity, sanitary sewer and code-conforming plumbing, a functioning roof and building envelope, and functioning heating and air conditioning where already supplied — but those standards can be waived in writing and largely address a rented dwelling rather than a bare lot you park your own home on.

Arkansas has no statute expressly requiring a park to maintain interior roads, lighting, or storm drainage as a tenant right, so road and common-area complaints are usually pursued through the local Health Department, county or city code enforcement, or a breach-of-lease claim.

Arkansas also does not recognize a broad implied warranty of habitability beyond § 18-17-502, and there is no statutory repair-and-deduct or rent-withholding remedy — withholding lot rent can expose you to a 3-day notice, so document problems in writing and get advice before withholding.

The Trapped-Equity Problem and How to Protect Yourself

The economics of a mobile home park in Arkansas are unlike any apartment: you own the home, but moving it typically costs thousands of dollars, often more than an older home is worth, and many parks will not accept a home past a certain age. That is why lot-rent disputes feel so different here: walking away is rarely a real option, and park owners know it.

The law is what balances that power gap, which makes knowing the exact notice rules, fee limits, and eviction grounds in Arkansas worth more to a park resident than to almost any other kind of tenant.

Protect yourself the way the long-time residents do: keep every rent notice and rule change in writing, photograph the condition of your lot and the park’s common areas a couple of times a year, and read the community rules before signing anything, in most states the written rules you were given are what a court will hold both sides to.

Selling Your Home Without Losing Its Value

When it is time to leave, most residents sell the home in place rather than move it, and this is where park rules matter most.

Many states limit a park’s power to block an in-place sale: the park can usually screen the buyer the way it screens any new resident, but it generally cannot force you to remove a home just because you are selling, and it cannot demand a cut of your sale price unless it actually acted as your sales agent.

Get the park’s buyer-approval requirements in writing early, keep the lot rent current through the sale, and never sign a rule change mid-sale without reading it, a home that can stay on its lot is worth far more than one that has to be moved.

The Strongest Protection Is the Lot Next Door

Everything about park life is shared, the roads, the water lines, the rent schedule, the fate of the land itself. That is why the single most effective move a park resident in Arkansas can make is joining or forming a residents association. A park owner can ignore one complaint about a rent increase; ignoring a letter signed by sixty households is a different decision.

Associations are also how residents use park-sale rights in the states that grant them, organized communities have bought their own parks across the country, usually with help from nonprofit lenders who specialize in exactly this.

Keep your own records the same way any tenant should: the lease for your lot, every rent notice, every rule change, photos of anything the park fails to maintain. Arkansas mobile home park laws reward the resident who can show a judge dates and documents, and most disputes never reach a judge once the park realizes you have them.

Recent changes in Arkansas: Arkansas took no action in the 2025 regular session or the 2026 fiscal session to create a mobile home park act, a lot-rent cap, park-sale notice, or park-closure relocation assistance, and housing bills that did move — such as SB456, the Home Opportunities Made Easier Act, which was sent to interim study — concerned zoning and housing supply rather than park resident protections.

The most recent change that actually reaches lot renters remains Act 1052 of 2021, effective for leases entered or renewed after November 1, 2021, which added the implied residential quality standards now codified at Ark. Code Ann. § 18-17-502 and set the 10-day notice under the criminal failure-to-vacate statute. Rent-cap fights are legally foreclosed at the local level because Ark.

Code Ann. §§ 14-16-601 and 14-54-1409 preempt any city or county rent control ordinance, so only the General Assembly could impose a lot-rent limit.

Arkansas Mobile Home Park Laws: Quick Answers

Can the park raise lot rent whenever it wants? The Arkansas mobile home park laws above set the notice rules, and any cap, that apply before an increase is valid.

Can the park make me remove my home? Only for the legal grounds listed in the Arkansas mobile home park laws, and only through the court process, never by padlock or tow truck.

Do apartment tenant rights apply to me? Partly. The Arkansas mobile home park laws are their own chapter, and this page plus the state guides linked below cover both layers.

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Official Arkansas Sources & Resources

Making Arkansas Mobile Home Park Laws Work for You

The Arkansas mobile home park laws only protect residents who use them, and parks count on most residents never reading the act. Read your lot lease against this page, calendar every notice deadline the moment a letter arrives, and talk to your neighbors, nearly every protection in the Arkansas mobile home park laws gets stronger when residents act together.

If the park ignores the rules, the state agency and local legal aid both handle park disputes, and a written complaint citing the act gets a very different response than a phone call. Under the Arkansas mobile home park laws, the resident with documents and neighbors is never as trapped as the park hopes.

This guide to arkansas mobile home park laws was last verified against official sources in August 2026. Lot-rent caps and park-sale laws are moving fast in many states, re-check before acting on a deadline.

More Arkansas Tenant Rights Guides

Disclaimer: This guide is informational only and is not legal advice. Landlord-tenant laws change and vary by city and county within a state. Verify current rules with your state, your local court, or a free legal-aid office before acting. If you are facing eviction, contact a local tenant attorney or legal-aid organization right away.

Renting? Protect your belongings — compare renters insurance at Home Insure Guide. Divorce involving a lease? See Divorce Help Guide. Unsafe housing / toxic mold injury? Some cases qualify — see Mass Tort Info.