Parliament passes the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Amendment Bill 2024

Today, the Queensland Parliament passed the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Amendment Bill 2024 (Bill) with minor amendments.

• The Bill was introduced on 21 March 2024.
• The Bill proposes various amendments to the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003 (Qld) that will have a significant impact on the operation of residential parks in Queensland concerning, in particular, site rent increases (introducing a site rent increase cap and banning market reviews) and introduction of a manufactured home buyback and rent reduction scheme, amongst other reforms.
• The Bill was referred to the Housing, Big Build and Manufacturing Committee for review, which recently tabled its report as to the Bill on 10 May 2024 and recommended that the Bill be passed.

Meaghan Scanlon, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Planning and Minister for Public Works, said in Parliament:

“The bill rebalances the relationship between park operators and home owners, including providing for a more equitable share of financial risk between the two parties.”

As noted, the Bill was passed with some minor clarifications and amendments as a result of stakeholder and community feedback during the consultation process.

A copy of the amendments is available here and the Explanatory Notes is available here.

Apart from some minor technical amendments, the amendments made to the Bill were as follows:

Method of paying site rent

Direct debit is now explicitly included as an approved way of paying site rent (as an example of payments made to a financial institution account nominated by the park owner), and there is also an ability for additional approved payment methods to be specified in a regulation.

Terms in new site agreements

The requirement to include certain terms in new site agreements that cannot be changed from the previous site agreement is now subject to any changes to the site agreement which occur in accordance with the Act, for example, changes made in relation to utilities under section 73 of the Act.

Buybacks

• The timeframes for parties to agree on a resale value are now 14 days (instead of 7 days) to provide parties more time for parties to reach an agreement.
• A park owner is now explicitly exempted from committing an offence for failing to buy back a home where there is an unresolved dispute about removing the home from the buyback and rent reduction scheme.
• An application by a park owner to QCAT seeking an extension of time in relation to the buyback scheme is now exempt from the staged dispute resolution process.

Cooling-off

The existing section 34 of the Act is now clarified to provide that where the buyers of a pre-owned manufactured home exercise their cooling-off right, the automatic termination of the sale agreement also applies where the home is sold by a party other than the park owner.

No alternative basis to market review

It is now clarified that where a CPI increase is to replace a prohibited market rent review because there is no alternative basis included in the site agreement, the site rent may increase by the CPI on an annual basis (but not within 1 year after the day the site rent was last increased).

From here, the Governor will provide their assent to the Bill which will occur in the coming days. Once that occurs, the amendments that commence on assent (including with respect to site rent increases, buybacks and termination orders) commence and become law. The balance of the amendments will commence either six months after commencement or on a date in due course to be fixed by proclamation.

Park owners need to consider the terms of their site agreements and all other aspects of their business to prepare for the commencement of these amendments.