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

✓ Law Verified August 2026

West virginia 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 West Virginia sources as of August 2026.

West Virginia Mobile Home Park Laws at a Glance

Why Park Living Has Its Own Rulebook in West Virginia

Article 15 applies specifically to a factory-built home held as personal property that sits on land owned by someone else under a landlord/tenant relationship (§37-15-1).

Unlike apartment renting, you rent only the lot (a “factory-built home site”) inside a “factory-built home rental community” while you own the home, so a written lease is mandatory before move-in (§37-15-3(a)), the park cannot put a clause in that lease prohibiting you from selling your home (§37-15-3(d)(1)),

and your tenancy is protected from no-cause termination for a fixed start-up period — 12 months for a single-section home and 5 years for a double-wide or larger — because moving a home costs far more than moving out of an apartment (§37-15-6(a)).

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 West Virginia 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: NO STATUTORY NOTICE PERIOD — Article 15 contains no rent-increase notice requirement and sets no number of days. Rent is whatever the signed written agreement states (§37-15-3(b)(1)), and a park rule adopted after you signed that substantially modifies your original agreement does not take effect until your current agreement expires and a new written agreement is made (§37-15-3a(b)).

In practice many residents see increases only at renewal, and the park still needs 3 months’ written notice to end your tenancy if you refuse — check your written lease and with your magistrate court.

Is there a cap? NO CAP

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 West Virginia 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

During the protected start-up period (12 months for a single-section home, 5 years for a multi-section home) and during any unexpired lease term, the park may terminate ONLY for “good cause,” which §37-15-2(e) limits to four things: (1) you are in arrears on rent or other charges; (2) you breached a material term of the written rental agreement or repeatedly breached other terms;

(3) where there is no written agreement or it is silent, you breached a material warranty or leasehold covenant or repeatedly breached other terms; or (4) you deliberately or negligently damaged the property, or knowingly let someone else do so. After the stated term ends and the protected period has run, either side may end the tenancy for any reason unless your written agreement says reasons must exist (§37-15-6(b)).

Self-help is barred — the park may not shut off gas, electricity, water or any other essential service, may not remove your home from the site, and may not use any other willful self-help measure (§37-15-6(d)). The termination notice must state the reason with specific facts including date, place, witnesses and circumstances (§37-15-6(e)).

Retaliation for code complaints, suing the park, joining a tenants’ organization, or testifying against the landlord is prohibited, including retaliatory selective rent increases (§37-15-7).

This list matters enormously: it means a park in West Virginia 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: NO RESIDENT PURCHASE LAW — West Virginia has no right of first refusal, no opportunity-to-purchase statute, and no advance notice-of-sale requirement for a park sale, unlike Virginia, New Hampshire and several other states. What you do have: the park cannot include a clause barring you from selling your own home (§37-15-3(d)(1));

it cannot charge a commission on the sale of your home in the community unless you expressly hire it to perform a sale service, and that hiring cannot be a condition of your initial sale or rental (§37-15-5(a)(3));

if the park ends your tenancy with no good cause at the end of the stated term or protected period, and it is not changing the use of the site, it may not prevent you from selling your home in place to a buyer who meets the standards it applies to other new tenants (§37-15-6(f));

and when you do sell, the buyer signs a new written agreement with the park if the home stays on the site, provided the buyer meets the standards in the prior agreement (§37-15-3(f)).

When the park closes: NO CLOSURE STATUTE — West Virginia sets no months-of-notice requirement for closing a park or converting the land, and provides no relocation fund, no relocation payment, and no dollar figure of any kind.

The only mass-displacement protection is §37-15-6a: a park may not terminate or evict more than 25 tenants within a single 18-month period unless it gets every tenant’s written agreement to leave voluntarily, gives each tenant at least 6 months’ notice, or the individual tenant breached the agreement.

If the park violates that, you may be able to sue for actual damages, your relocation costs, plus either treble damages or one year’s rent — whichever is greater — and reasonable attorney fees (§37-15-6a(b)). A park with 25 or fewer affected tenants falls back to the ordinary 3-month notice.

Fees the Park Can and Cannot Charge in West Virginia

Under §37-15-5(a) a West Virginia park may not demand or collect: any fee not listed in your rental agreement; an entrance fee for the privilege of renting or occupying a lot; a commission on the sale of a home in the community unless you expressly employ the park for a sale service (and that cannot be a condition of the initial sale or rental);

or a fee for improvements or installations on the interior of your home unless you expressly employ the park to do that work. Your written agreement also may not require you to pay any recurring charge except fixed rent, utility charges, or reasonable incidental charges for services or facilities the park actually supplies (§37-15-3(d)(2)).

Guest fees are barred in effect — an invitee of yours has free access to your lot without charge unless a court has ordered otherwise (§37-15-5(b)).

The park cannot restrict which vendors you buy your home or your goods and services from, except in the initial rental of a brand-new site never rented before (§37-15-5(c)). Note the gap: Article 15 sets no percentage limit on utility markups and names no exit fee, so read the fee list in your lease closely.

The park’s side of the bargain: Article 15 has no general repair-and-maintain clause.

Instead, your written agreement must contain a description of the physical improvements and maintenance to be provided by the tenant and by the landlord during the tenancy (§37-15-3(b)(4)), plus a list of the services provided when the agreement is signed that will continue to be offered for the term, and the fees for those services (§37-15-3(b)(5)) — so whatever the park promised on roads, water, sewer, trash,

snow removal and common areas is enforceable as a written lease term,

and the statutory definition of a rental community expressly includes any structure, equipment, road or facility used incidental to occupancy (§37-15-2(c)). The park also may not willfully interrupt gas, electricity, water or any other essential service (§37-15-6(d)).

Water supply and sewage in West Virginia parks are separately regulated by the state health rules on mobile home parks (64CSR40 and 64CSR41), enforced through your local health department, so many residents can report failing water or sewage to that department.

Get the maintenance and services list in writing — if it is not in the agreement, you may have little to enforce.

The Trapped-Equity Problem and How to Protect Yourself

The economics of a mobile home park in West Virginia 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 West Virginia 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 West Virginia 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. West virginia 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 West Virginia: Article 15’s tenant protections were last substantively set in the 1990s-2000s and no 2024, 2025, or 2026 bill has changed them.

HB 4347 (2024 Regular Session) and HB 2648 (2025 Regular Session), both aimed at adding tenant protections and landlord notice requirements for mobile and manufactured home rental properties by amending §37-15-2 and §37-15-6, were each referred to House Judiciary and died there without a vote.

There is no rent-cap bill, no park-sale notice bill, and no opportunity-to-purchase bill pending in the 2026 Regular Session, so West Virginia has not followed New Jersey’s 3.5 percent or Oregon’s roughly 6 percent lot-rent caps.

West Virginia Mobile Home Park Laws: Quick Answers

Can the park raise lot rent whenever it wants? The West Virginia 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 West Virginia 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 West Virginia mobile home park laws are their own chapter, and this page plus the state guides linked below cover both layers.

Official West Virginia Sources & Resources

• West Virginia State Agency: ago.wv.gov
• West Virginia Park Act Statute: code.wvlegislature.gov/37-15/
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: hud.gov
• Cornell Legal Information Institute: law.cornell.edu/wex

Making West Virginia Mobile Home Park Laws Work for You

The West Virginia 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 West Virginia 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 West Virginia mobile home park laws, the resident with documents and neighbors is never as trapped as the park hopes.

This guide to west virginia 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 West Virginia Tenant Rights Guides

• West Virginia Tenant Rights
• West Virginia Eviction Process
• West Virginia Security Deposit Law
• West Virginia Rent Increase Laws
• West Virginia Repairs & Habitability
• Breaking a Lease in West Virginia
• Eviction Timeline Calculator
• All 50 States

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.