Virginia mobile home park sale requirements, including the 2026 right of first refusal

Last reviewed against official sources: August 26, 2026. Primary sources are linked at the end of this page. Information on this website is general and is provided so a Virginia community owner can ask better questions. It is not legal, tax, engineering, environmental or financial advice, and Titan Property Investors does not provide those services. Statutes, permits and local ordinances change. Confirm anything that affects your decision with your own Virginia attorney, accountant, engineer or other qualified professional.

1. The 2026 change: residents and localities get a right of first refusal

This is the item most Virginia owners have not yet worked through, and it is the one that changes how a sale is sequenced. Va. Code § 55.1-1308.3 sets out a right of first refusal that applies when the owner of a manufactured home park enters into a contract to sell the park to a third party. The former § 55.1-1308.2 was repealed and replaced by this framework, along with §§ 55.1-1308.4 and 55.1-1308.5.

In outline, and reading the statute rather than summarizing anyone else's summary:

• Annual notice to tenants. The owner must notify tenants each year of their rights under §§ 55.1-1308.3 and 55.1-1308.4, by mail and personal delivery, and post the notice prominently in the community.
• Notice within five business days of a third-party contract. After entering the contract, the owner gives notice describing the price and material terms and stating the right of first refusal. Notice runs to the tenants by certified mail and personal delivery to each manufactured home, to specified officials of the locality, and to the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, which posts the information within three business days.
• Fifteen days for a resident entity, then fifteen more for the locality. A resident entity has 15 days after receiving notice to give written intent to exercise the right. If it does not, the locality gets an additional 15 days. Resident entities hold first priority and the locality second.
• Sixty days to a proposed agreement, then generally sixty more. After an intent notice, a proposed purchase agreement at the same price and on substantially equivalent terms may be delivered within 60 days, with a commitment to preserve the park as a manufactured home community for at least 15 years unless a majority of tenants consent to conversion to another form of affordable housing. Financing and closing generally have 60 days after the agreement unless the parties agree otherwise.
• Changed terms can restart the clock. Subsequent changes in terms may trigger their own notice procedure, and a price change beyond 5 percent may be treated as a new offer where no intent notice has been received.
• A recorded affidavit at closing. Under § 55.1-1308.5 the seller records an affidavit in circuit court certifying compliance with §§ 55.1-1308.3 and 55.1-1308.4, with copies of the notices attached. Recordation is presumptive evidence of compliance for purposes of good title, and failure to record is presumptive evidence of noncompliance.
• Good-faith consideration of a resident offer. Section 55.1-1308.4 requires an owner to consider a resident entity's purchase offer and negotiate in good faith, and to give written reasons for a rejection.
• Exclusions and enforcement. The statute excludes certain transfers, including sales to family and to existing partial owners. Noncompliance can support locality or tenant enforcement, including injunctive relief and damages, and provisions penalizing an owner for accepting a resident or locality offer are void.

What this means in practice for you as a seller: the process is workable, but it is a process. It rewards getting your notices, tenant list and records in order before a contract is signed rather than after, and it means a buyer who has read the statute will build these periods into the schedule instead of promising you a closing date that ignores them. Anyone who tells you a Virginia park closes on a fixed timetable without asking about this has not read it.

Because these deadlines carry real consequences for title and for enforcement, this is the one part of a Virginia park sale where we tell every owner plainly: retain a Virginia real estate attorney before you sign a contract. We are a buyer, not your counsel.

2. The Virginia Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act

Lot tenancies in Virginia are governed by their own statute, the Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act, Va. Code § 55.1-1300 and following, not by the ordinary residential landlord-tenant rules many out-of-state buyers assume. It applies to communities with more than two lots offered for rent, and it shapes several things a buyer cares about:

• Written rental agreements and park rules. Parks that never papered their tenancies create diligence friction. It rarely kills a deal, but it slows one down.
• Notice periods for rent changes and non-renewal. A buyer models rent growth around these timelines, so they affect year-one cash flow and therefore price.
• Sale of a resident's home in place. Residents generally may sell their home without removing it, which is what keeps tenant-owned-home communities stable and valuable.

Practical takeaway for sellers: gather whatever agreements exist, even old ones. Missing paperwork is a discount lever for a buyer who wants one. We price it once, up front, rather than re-trading later.

3. Park closure and conversion notice

Virginia requires advance notice to residents when a community is closed or converted to another use, which is part of why redevelopment offers arrive with long timelines and conditions attached. Whether a particular transaction triggers closure or conversion obligations depends on what the buyer actually intends to do with the property and on the current statutory text, so treat that question as one for your attorney rather than for a buyer's website. What we can say about our own intent is straightforward: we buy communities to keep operating them, and the 2026 right of first refusal framework in section 1 above expressly contemplates a long-term commitment to preserving the community when a resident entity or locality exercises its right.

4. Water and wastewater: VDH, DEQ, and what each one costs you

More Virginia parks run on private infrastructure than most sellers realize, and this is the single biggest swing factor in an offer.

• Onsite sewage (septic and drainfields) falls under the Virginia Department of Health. Failing systems, undersized drainfields, and shared systems each carry a different repair cost.
• Lagoons and package treatment plants generally require a DEQ discharge permit with sampling and reporting obligations. Buyers price permit compliance, operator contracts, and the remaining useful life of the plant.
• Private wells serving multiple homes can be regulated as waterworks, which brings testing and operator requirements that a family owner may never have formalized.
• Master-metered city water shifts leak risk to you. Virginia parks that submeter typically appraise higher because the expense line is smaller and more predictable.

None of this disqualifies a park with us. An open VDH or DEQ item is a number, and we would rather see it in the first conversation than at day 20 of diligence.

5. How Virginia taxes the land versus the homes

The community's land and improvements are assessed as real estate by the city or county, at rates that vary widely across localities. Individual manufactured homes are generally taxed separately, and a home can be converted to real property when it is permanently affixed and its title is surrendered under the Virginia titling rules. For a seller this matters in two ways: park-owned homes may carry tax exposure the buyer will verify, and a locality's reassessment cycle can change the buyer's expense model between the offer and the closing.

6. Zoning, nonconforming use, and the Dillon Rule

Virginia is a Dillon Rule state, so localities exercise only the powers the General Assembly grants them, but within that, county and city zoning for manufactured housing varies enormously. A large share of older Virginia parks are legal nonconforming uses: fine as they operate today, but potentially restricted if the use lapses or the community is substantially damaged. Buyers and lenders check this. If your park has vacant pads that have sat empty for years, confirm the locality still recognizes them, because those pads are worth real money in an offer only if they can be filled.

7. Local ordinances that surprise out-of-state buyers

Road width and maintenance standards, stormwater requirements, home age restrictions on replacement units, setback rules that determine whether a vacant pad can actually take a modern double-wide, and erosion and sediment control for infill work, these are set locally and differ from Fairfax to Pittsylvania County. It is a large part of why we underwrite Virginia only.

What this means for your sale

Sections 2 through 7 above are each either a discount a buyer takes or a risk they price in, and section 1 is a sequence you have to run correctly. The fastest way to protect your number is to disclose everything at the start. Tell us the drainfield is tired, the lagoon has a sampling notice, or the 1978 singlewides on lots 14 through 19 are yours, and we build it into our written read instead of renegotiating later. If you would like the numbers side of this, see how a Virginia community is valued and what our evaluation process actually involves.

Primary sources

• Va. Code § 55.1-1308.3, right of first refusal on the sale of a manufactured home park
• Va. Code § 55.1-1308.4, consideration of resident entity offers and good-faith negotiation
• Va. Code § 55.1-1308.5, recorded affidavit of compliance
• Va. Code Title 55.1, Chapter 13, Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act
• Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, manufactured housing
• Virginia Department of Health, onsite sewage and water services
• Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, water permits

Information on this website is general and is provided so a Virginia community owner can ask better questions. It is not legal, tax, engineering, environmental or financial advice, and Titan Property Investors does not provide those services. Statutes, permits and local ordinances change. Confirm anything that affects your decision with your own Virginia attorney, accountant, engineer or other qualified professional.