Almost every investor who calls me about a park has read something about the BC Residential Tenancy Act. Pad tenancies do not live there. They live under the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act, with its own regulation, its own forms, its own rent formula, and its own compensation rules when a park closes.
People shorten it to the MHPTA. Here is what it actually does to you as an owner.
It applies to a single rented pad
The Act defines a manufactured home park as the parcel on which one or more manufactured home sites that the same landlord rents or intends to rent, and common areas, are located.
One or more. There is no minimum site count in the statute. A lot of brokerage and municipal material assumes you need two or more sites before the Act bites, and that is not what the definition says. Municipal zoning bylaws often do use a different threshold, but that is a separate question from whether the MHPTA governs your tenancies.
Why a sale does not reset the rent
This is the single most common misreading I hear. Someone buys a park with rents well under market and plans to bring them up on closing.
You cannot. The Act defines landlord to include the heirs, assigns, personal representatives and successors in title of the original landlord. That definition is the whole mechanism. On closing you become the landlord under every existing tenancy agreement, on the existing terms.
The RTB's own site tenancy agreement form says it in plainer English than the statute does: a new landlord has the same rights and duties as the previous one and must follow all the terms of the agreement unless the tenant and the new landlord agree to other terms.
Section 35(1) then ties the increase clock to the effective date of the last lawful increase rather than to a change in ownership. The rent history comes with the park. Underwrite from in-place rent, always.
How much you can raise pad rent in 2026
The 2026 limit for manufactured home site tenancies is 2.3% plus a proportional amount for changes in local government levies and regulated utility fees. In 2025 it was 3% plus a proportional amount.
Under section 32 of the regulation, the inflation rate is the 12 month average percent change in the all-items Consumer Price Index for British Columbia ending in the most recently available July. The proportional amount is the change in local government levies plus the change in regulated park utilities, divided by the number of sites in the park.
Eligible levies include property tax on the land, regional district tax, school taxes, hospital levies, and garbage collection fees appearing on a local government tax notice. The first two are usually the biggest lines. Eligible utility fees cover electricity, natural gas, water, telephone, cable, internet and propane. The RTB limits both levies and utility fees to the park's common property, which is guidance rather than statute but is what the approved form is built around. Diesel fuel does not qualify. Penalties do not qualify. Estimated amounts do not qualify.
The proportional amount is a pass-through. It recovers a cost you have already paid. It is not margin, and underwriting it as growth is how buyers talk themselves into a price.
Two more mechanics that bite. There is no carry-forward, so taking only part of last year's allowable increase does not let you add the remainder this year. And you cannot round up.
On process: once per 12 months, three full months of notice, in the approved form. There are two current forms and picking the wrong one is a live risk. RTB-45 is for an inflation-only increase, the plain 2.3% in 2026. RTB-11a is the one to use where you are also claiming the proportional amount. Section 35(4) is the provision to check in a seller's file, but its reach is narrower than people assume. Where a notice misses the 12 month gap or the three month notice period it slides to the earliest date that does comply. That rescue does not cover a notice given on the wrong form, which simply fails. So the rent on the rent roll may not be the rent legally in place. A tenant cannot dispute an increase that does comply.
There is an above-guideline route under section 36 and section 33 of the regulation. Grounds include significant non-recurring repairs, an extraordinary increase in operating expenses, and financing costs on the purchase of the park that could not have been foreseen under reasonable circumstances. You have to apply for all sites at an equal percentage, and the application fee is $300 plus $10 per site to a maximum of $600.
My view on that route: know it exists, do not build a pro forma on it. It is an application with a hearing and a director's discretion at the end, not a lever you pull when the numbers get tight.
When a tenant sells their home, you have ten days
A tenant who sells their manufactured home in place is assigning the site tenancy, and that ordinarily needs your written consent. The Act gives three routes: your prior written consent, a director's order, or an authorization already sitting in the tenancy agreement. What surprises new owners is how little discretion the Act gives them.
Section 28(2) says a landlord may withhold consent only in the circumstances prescribed in the regulations. Section 48 of the regulation is the complete list, and there is nothing else. Those grounds include reasonable grounds on relevant information that the purchaser is unlikely to comply with the agreement or the park rules, reasonable grounds from credit information that the purchaser cannot or likely will not pay rent, age requirements in a 55 and over park, purchase for business use or of multiple homes, homes that are destroyed or removed, an inability to verify references, rent arrears, and the home not meeting housing, health and safety standards required by law. That last one is the ground a park buyer is most likely to need and most likely to miss.
Section 28(3) is blunt: a landlord must not charge a tenant anything for considering, investigating or consenting to an assignment or sublease. No transfer fee, not even a small administrative one.
Now the deadline, with three qualifiers worth knowing. The clock only starts if the home owner asks in writing on the approved form. Section 45 of the regulation then requires a written response within 10 days, in the approved form, and where you are withholding consent it has to state the section 48 grounds plus the source and nature of the information behind them. The 10 days runs to the home owner receiving your response, not to the day you post it, and the two of you can agree in writing to a later date. Section 46 says that if the home owner has not received a response by the end of the tenth day, your consent is conclusively deemed to have been given.
Sit on the request and you have consented. That is the operational risk in a park you bought last month, when the files are a mess and nobody is reliably opening the mail. Build a process for it in your first week, not your first year.
Park rules changed in April 2024
B.C. Reg. 91/2024 took effect on April 30, 2024 and rewrote how park rules are made and changed. If you are relying on advice older than that, it is wrong.
Who can change the rules at all depends on whether the park has a committee, and that is the first thing to establish about a park you are buying. Where a committee exists, it makes the rules and can change them as often as it sees fit. Only where there is no committee does the landlord make them, and then only if at least one year has passed since the landlord last made a change. There are two different approved notice forms for exactly this reason, RTB-56a for a park with no committee and RTB-56b for a park with one. Notice must be in writing in the form approved by the director and given at least three months before the change takes effect. It used to be two weeks.
The practical consequence, if you are the one making the rules: you get one rule change notice a year, so every change you want has to be in it. Plan the whole year at once or wait twelve months.
Section 30(3) of the regulation sets four conditions, and a change is enforceable only if all of them hold. The rule has to apply to all tenants in a fair manner. It has to be clear enough that a reasonable tenant can understand how to comply. Notice has to have been given properly. And it must not change a material term of the tenancy agreement.
Section 30(1) adds that the change must be reasonable in the circumstances and must do one of four things: promote the convenience or safety of tenants, protect and preserve the condition of the park or the landlord's property, regulate access to or fairly distribute a service or facility, or regulate pets in common areas.
On pets specifically, a rule prohibiting a pet does not apply to a pet already living with a tenant or resident when the rule is passed. You cannot write out the dog that is already there.
The committee itself is worth understanding before you buy, because the popular description of it is wrong. Homeowners elect two to five tenants and the landlord or a nominee is also a member. Committee decisions have to be made by unanimous agreement of all members, so as landlord you can block a committee decision rather than being outvoted on it. Where the committee deadlocks and a rule change goes to a park-wide ballot, that is the point at which you get one vote equal to a tenant's, voting is one vote per site, and a site that does not vote is counted as voting in favour. Enforcement stays with the landlord or the legal authorities. The committee does not enforce.
What closing a park actually costs
Redevelopment stories sell parks. The statute prices them.
Section 42(1) lets a landlord end tenancies to convert all or a significant part of a park to a non-residential use, or to a residential use other than a park, but only where the landlord has all the necessary permits and approvals required by law and intends in good faith to do it. Permits first. The notice comes after the approvals, not as a step toward getting them.
The notice must end the tenancy no earlier than 12 months after it is received, on the day before rent is payable. A tenant has 15 days to dispute it, and may choose to leave early on 10 days written notice without giving up compensation.
Compensation is $20,000, payable on or before the effective date of the notice. That is per tenancy, set by section 33.1(1) of the regulation.
Then there are two tails. If steps have not been taken to accomplish the stated purpose within a reasonable period after the effective date, section 44(2), with the amounts set by section 33.1(2) of the regulation, requires the greater of $5,000 or the equivalent of 12 months rent. The director can excuse that in extenuating circumstances, but the exposure is real.
The one buyers rarely price is section 44.1, with its conditions set out in section 33.2 of the regulation. The tenant has to apply for it, and two things must both hold: the tenant cannot get the permits, licences, approvals or certificates required by law to move the home, or cannot move it to another site within a reasonable distance, and the tenant does not owe any tax in relation to the home. Where that is made out and the most recent assessed value exceeds the prescribed amount, the director may order compensation equal to the amount by which that assessed value exceeds $20,000. On an older home that will not survive a move, your exposure is set by BC Assessment rather than by your own model.
Run it on the park in front of you. Forty occupied sites at $20,000 is $800,000 before anyone breaks ground, and a vacant pad with no tenancy carries no payment, and section 44.1 can add to that. If a seller's price includes redevelopment upside, this is the number that has to come off it.
Where a dispute ends up
The director at the Residential Tenancy Branch has jurisdiction over rights and obligations under the Act, and over agreement terms relating to a tenant's use, occupation or maintenance of the site and the use of common areas, services and facilities.
The RTB cannot hear a claim for debt or damages above the Small Claims Act monetary limit, which is $35,000. For claims under section 44(1), section 44(2) or section 44.1, the ceiling is higher at $65,000. A claimant who wants to stay at the RTB can abandon the excess portion of the claim.
Otherwise the courts are largely shut out. A court does not have and must not exercise jurisdiction over a matter that must be submitted to the director for dispute resolution under the Act.
One clarification worth having, because the language misleads people. RTB hearings are run by arbitrators, but section 51(5) says the Arbitration Act does not apply. This is an administrative hearing on the RTB's timeline, not commercial arbitration on yours.
The 2025 change that matters if you inherit a derelict home
B.C. Reg. 50/2025 took effect on April 9, 2025 and replaced the whole of Part 6 of the regulation, which deals with abandonment of personal property. It brought in new definitions, a minimum 30 day storage period, a duty of reasonable care and caution, early disposal for unsafe items and for items worth under $1,000, rules for property with personal value, and rules on distributing proceeds.
Be careful with what that part does and does not let you do. It governs when a tenant's personal property may be treated as abandoned. It does not let you declare a pad abandoned because it looks empty. The test needs a continuous month in which the tenant has neither ordinarily occupied the site nor paid rent, and even then you can only act on it where the tenant has told you they are not coming back, or the circumstances are such that they could not reasonably be expected to return. Acting earlier than that is unlawful, and it is an easy mistake for a new owner walking a park with a derelict home on it.
If you are buying a park with an abandoned home sitting on a pad, that is the part of the regulation you will be working in on day one. Ask the seller what has already been done about it, and get it in writing.
The two provisions that change a price
If I had to name the two that most often move what a buyer should pay, they are the $20,000 per tenancy under section 44 and the 10 day deemed consent in section 46 of the regulation.
The first sets the floor under any redevelopment story a seller tells you. The second is where a new owner with a disorganized office quietly loses control of who moves into the park.
I am a broker, not a lawyer, and this is a summary rather than legal advice. Section numbers reflect the consolidations current in August 2026, and the regulation has been amended three times since the start of 2024, so check the current text before you act on any of it. Get counsel on a specific deal.
Send me the rent roll and the rent increase notices from a park you are looking at, and I will tell you whether the in-place rent is actually in place.