The owners of manufactured homes and residential park owners have been invited to comment on a new issues paper relating to their homes and complete a survey to register their views on living in a residential park.
Inviting the participants to take part in the project, Minister for Communities and Housing, Leeanne Enoch said the issues paper identified the key topics raised by stakeholders who have concerns about excessive site rent increases in residential parks and the process of selling a manufactured home.
Ms Enoch said she knew many manufactured homeowners were on fixed incomes and increases to their site rent can be hard to afford.
“The homes consumers buy in residential parks are difficult and expensive to move to a new residential park if the site rent becomes unaffordable.” Ms Enoch said.
“At the same time, residential parks must remain viable to ensure they can continue to provide quality accommodation and services,” she said.
“This is the balance we are striving to achieve.”
Ms Enoch said the Government was seeking feedback about whether the issues paper had captured and correctly described all the issues.
“We want to hear from people about site rent increases and the effectiveness of existing protections,” she said.
“We will also be exploring options to improve access to pre-contractual advice about residential parks and improving dispute resolution.
“There are 202 residential parks across Queensland with more than 23,400 sites so this is something that impacts quite a number of Queenslanders.”
Ms Enoch said input from people who own, or have owned, a manufactured home was important.
“We are also releasing a survey for former and current manufactured home owners to complete to help us understand their experiences,” the Minister said.
“The feedback and survey results will help us fully understand the concerns so we can consider options for addressing them.”
She said that once they were received a Regulatory Impact Statement would be developed to identify the option with the greatest community benefit.
“People will also be given the opportunity to comment on this,” she said.
More information on the issues paper and survey can be found at this PS News link.
The issues paper and survey will be available until 15 August.
