Welcome to our Questions and Answers. Here you will find answered questions that have been asked by our members.
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GST is not charged on residential rents of any type so this includes site rents at residential parks.
The wording in the legislation continues from when the industry was caravan park based and homes were towed in on their own wheels, prebuilt. The legislation was designed to allow park owners to get rid of manufactured homes easily if they wished to use the land for another purpose. Many parks and villages still contain truly relocatable homes and some park owners use the parts of the Act you allude to, to actively try to get rid of these for more profitable development.
Though you won’t hear anything on this officially, there is a proposal on the Govt. table that would see the purpose-built villages like yours, moved under a modified Retirement Villages Act while mixed use parks would retain the present (possibly somewhat modified) Act.
If the park owner is willing to give a caravan owner a Manufactured Home Site Agreement, then they can join QMHOA
The situation is that you must get written permission to install the door from the park owner or manager BUT as you said, this permission cannot be unreasonably withheld. From what you write, to withhold permission would be unreasonable. So, in order to install the door, unfortunately you will have to jump through a few hoops. This is the process:
1. print a Form 11 from the Dept. of Housing – Manufactured Homes Forms (conference with park owner to formally request permission) and use it to arrange a meeting.
2. If permission not given, IMMEDIATELY apply for mediation (see QCAT website for details) Mediation tries to get the 2 parties to come to an agreement)
3. If mediation fails, you may then apply for an order from QCAT. If this is necessary, QMHOA will assist you with the application process and other matters if you wish.
To ask for certification would be unreasonable. In the first instance ignore such a demand and refer it back to QMHOA for further advice.
There is no Queensland or Australian CPI as such. They are calculated on capital cities. Because all parks under the Manufactured Homes Act operate only in Queensland, the logical CPI is the one shown for Brisbane (even if you live in Cairns). However, the rule is consistency. If a park owner has always used the Australian (All Capital Cities) CPI, then they should continue using this. A park owner who shops around in order to get the highest CPI, is playing the system and an order could be obtained to require consistency. FYI – the Brisbane CPI to June 2019 was 1.7 while the All Capital Cities CPI was 1.6.
When you bought your home and entered the park, you would have signed a Form 2 Site Agreement. If you check Section 16 of this agreement, you will see whether the park owner agreed that for sale signs could be erected, or whether you agreed that no for sale sign could be erected. As both you and park owner signed this agreement, the terms of section 16 are binding. If you wished to have this term changed to allow a sign to be put up you would either need to have the park owner agree to this request, or you would need to prove to the Tribunal that the term was unfair and explain why you agreed to this term initially.
All purchasers of a Manufactured Home have the right to negotiate with any item in the Site Agreement, hence why so important to very clearly read the wording and the future consequences of every section.
Yes – at the time of writing the current fee for an application for orders is $367.00. If a group makes a joint application, only the one fee applies. If an applicant, or a group of applicants, rely on a pension or something similar, they may be able to have this fee waived by filling out a QCAT Form 49 (Application for Waiver of Fees).
Yes, site rent must be paid for every week that you are the owner of the home, irrespective of whether or not it is vacant.
We believe that there is a newly formed group called MHOA (VIC).
The contact details we have for them are:
Phone: 0431 347 797 Email: info.mhoa.vic@gmail.com
Queensland Manufactured Home Owners Association Inc. (QMHOA) is an organisation dedicated to protecting the rights and interests of manufactured home owners in Queensland.
We assist members in understanding the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003 which governs residential parks and the site agreements (contracts) made under that Act, especially in relation to the settling of disputes between home owners and park operators.
