Manufactured Home Park Rent Increase in BC: Different Rules Apply

A Separate Legal Framework

If a tenant owns a manufactured home and rents the site (pad) it sits on, the tenancy is governed by the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act (MHPTA), not the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA). This matters because the MHPTA has its own rent increase forms, its own calculation method, and additional pass-through rules that don't exist for standard residential tenancies.

The dividing line is ownership structure:

• Tenant owns the home, rents the site → MHPTA applies
• Landlord rents both the home and the site → RTA applies (standard residential rules)

Getting this wrong means using the wrong form and potentially the wrong calculation, which voids the notice.

The MHPTA Calculation

Standard residential tenancies under the RTA are limited to the annual CPI cap — 2.3% for 2026, 2.2% for 2027 — with no additional pass-throughs. Manufactured home park tenancies get the same baseline CPI cap, but park owners can also pass through proportional increases in two categories:

1. Local government levies — property taxes, utility charges assessed by the municipality
2. Regulated public utility fees — charges from utilities like BC Hydro or FortisBC that serve the park

These proportional increases are calculated separately and added on top of the annual CPI cap. The total increase amount depends on the park's specific cost structure.

The Prescribed Forms

Park owners use different RTB forms depending on whether they're applying the standard CPI cap alone or including proportional pass-throughs:

Using Form RTB-7 — the standard residential rent increase form — for a manufactured home site tenancy is the wrong form and could be challenged.

Same Notice Period, Same Frequency

The three-full-rental-months notice period applies to MHPTA tenancies the same way it does under the RTA. Rent can still only be increased once every 12 months. The MHPTA has its own service rules: personal delivery is received when delivered, mail is deemed received after 5 days, and door or mailbox service after 3 days (MHPTA Sections 81 and 83). Email is deemed received after 3 days when sent to an address provided for service under Sections 59–60 of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Regulation.

Why This Distinction Exists

Manufactured home parks have a fundamentally different cost structure than apartment buildings or single-family rentals. Park owners provide infrastructure — roads, water systems, sewage, common areas — and these costs are heavily influenced by municipal levies and utility rates that the park owner doesn't control.

The MHPTA's pass-through mechanism acknowledges that a fixed CPI cap doesn't capture these external cost increases. At the same time, the proportional calculation prevents park owners from using the mechanism to extract above-cost revenue.

If You're Not Sure Which Act Applies

Check the tenancy agreement. If the tenant owns the manufactured home and the agreement is specifically for the rental of a site or pad, the MHPTA governs. If there's any ambiguity — for example, a mobile home owned by the landlord on a rented pad — the RTB can clarify which statute applies.

Standard residential rent increases (apartments, houses, condos, basement suites, secondary suites) all fall under the RTA. For the step-by-step process covering standard increases, see the BC Rent Increases guide.

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