Brian Lohse (IA Legislature photo)
A House committee has approved a bill that would force landlords to give mobile home residents 90 days notice for rent and utility hikes, up for the current 60 days.
The bill also includes some property tax relief, but the Iowa Manufactured Home Residents Network says after outrageous rent increases, the bill fails to limit future rent hikes or stop landlords from evicting them without citing a cause.
“And I concur,” Representative Lindsay James, a Democrat from Dubuque, said. “This is not enough.”
But James said the bill is a small step forward, so she voted for it.
Republican Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant is the bill’s floor manager. “I would’ve liked to have seen a lot more,” Lohse says, “but at this point this is the compromise that I could achieve in order to move the bill along.”
The bill is now eligible for debate in the full House.
Residents of mobile home parks began lobbying legislators for protections in 2019. Some said rent increases had been as high as 40% on the lots where their manufactured homes were placed years ago.