By Chuck Woodbury
The RV Industry Association (RVIA), which states on its website that RVs are for “temporary living” (see below), recently told the Washington Post that there are a million RVers living full-time in theirs. Many are living in one place all year long, which technically makes them mobile homes and subject to H.U.D. rules and regulations, which includes building them to higher standards. To RV park owners, such full-time residents would be tenants, the same as in a mobile home park.
We came across this post on a Facebook group. To confirm if it’s true we would like to learn if any RVtravel.com readers have come across a situation like what’s described. If so, we’d love to hear about your experiences, and talk to the RV parks involved to learn more about what, we suspect, could become a trend. Let me know at Chuck@rvtravel.com .
From RVIA.org, the website of the RV Industry Association, the definition of a recreational vehicle. Note the word “temporary.”
I live in a RV Park year round. We have a Park model.
There are at least 15 pull throughs. There are many open spaces for trailers at the moment.
We have new owners now. They are trying to get Snow Birds to pay full price all year now. These money grubbing people are going to lose many residents. They are setting down new rules and regulations.
This is Florida. We live in the County not city.
I am in a RV mobile park and live full time in my motorhome many oothers have been living in their RVs for 4 to 5 years out here there’s no cut-off time they even supply a propane tank to hook radian so for anybody who says that we can’t live in our motorhomes year-round full-time come to New Mexico Alamogordo has got many full-time RV spots
Lets not get our knickers in a twist here. The economy is not as robust as many would have you believe and, yes, many people live in RVs because they cannot afford other housing. I have worked in parks where many and sometimes most of the residents are permanent. I am retired and have worked as a workamper for several years (no I don’t actually need the money) and you can actually make good money with a low end park but not if you let it run down. Most parks cannot stay in business with just the overnight and a few weekly guests-and that is an economic fact of life. Depending on where you live, you can rent a monthly site for $300 to $400 per month and this includes water, sewer, trash, and lawn care and you buy a decent RV for less than $10,000. This makes for inexpensive living and you are not stuck in a trailer park. Most of these residents earn $10 to $12 per hour and that translates into a gross income of $1680 to $2016 per month. Just thought that I would give a little insight on this subject.
Although I believe many states say the term for an RV site must be 28 days to be kept from a tenant/landlord relationship, in Texas, as long as a park uses the correct legal terminology and, as Andy Zipser mentioned below, renews the reservation each month, the park can remain classified legally as an RV park with guests, not residents or tenants. Obviously, the main difference is in the language used in the signed “license to use a site” that is signed by each guest, not so much in any physical way. The 28 day term would add a whole new level of challenge to managing our guests payments in my opinion, although I see the advantage for a park monetarily. Another difficulty in keeping a parks patrons “guests” rather than tenants is MAIL. Certain legal mail like licenses, car titles, utility bills and the like, cannot have the parks address on them. Texas RV industry associations have advised their parks to have guests get P.O. Boxes and not receive any mail at the park address as it establishes residency. As you mentioned Chuck, the only reason that having a resident becomes a negative issue, would be if an ejecting of that person became necessary for any reason. Court and court fees and procedures, often taking months and including appeals by the guest to the court, cause many problems for parks in wasted time and funds.
We often stay 1 – 3 months at various CGs. One in FL has a 4 month limit and you must leave for at least a month. Military CGs usually have stay limits but are often disregarded. The base commanders set the rules. Most are weeks to 3 months. A few are 180 days. The best is at Youngstown OH. There are only 5 pull through sites there. Two are filled with 5th wheels, 100# propane tanks, rarely occupied, owned by 2 top officers at the base.
Falcon Meadows RV Park in Falcon Colorado charges 28 days for their “monthly” customers. This is so they don’t get labelled as a mobile home park, and gets them around the rules.
You can tell the RV’ers that are there long term because they have skirting, fences etc. I even saw one that didn’t even have a license plate. Why be street legal when you never take it out of the park!
Chuck,
I live in an RV park where there are some full-timers and the rules are simple. You must have an RVIA sticker to park here. No HUD units or tiny homes allowed. Park Models have RVIA stickers and thousanjds of them in Arizona are used full time. Also, the 28 day/4 week payment schedule is a way for the owner of the campground to make more money. If you live full time in a park it will not make any difference in how you pay the bill. Full time is full time.
It will cost the RVer more in states with sales tax because you don’t have to pay it if you are monthly. anything less and you are taxed. I could see states regulating this if they realize they are missing out on cash.
Too many campgrounds are becoming low end trailer parks for RVs that never move.
RV parks ate going the way of cell phone companies. Charge you every 30 days and beat you out of five days every year. Every six years you pay an extra month that you don’t get. It doesn’t sound like much, but for a cell phone, like Straight talk or Cricket, with 20 million users that’s about $700,000,000 million dollars or $116.6 million per year extra they get for zip. And that’s just one company. There should be a class action suit because those of us who have been using these phones for over 25 or so years have given them over a year free.
Remember a few years back when rumors and the fear HUD was trying to do away with RV’ers. It was basically the same thing. Folks are abusing the term RV. When you park in one place and never move or stay at one place for months, you are not RV’ing. You are living in an RV. Look at the whole Park Model and Destination model situation. They are not intended to be RV’s. They are modular homes. And honestly, they should be built to those standards and made to follow the same rules as other people who live in “mobile homes” and modular homes. RV parks are now trailer parks Travel to any large park on Florida and look at all the “RV’s” with concrete porches, garages attached, full size home AC Heat pump systems, and add ons. Not only do they not move, they can’t be moved. But each one has a vehicle license tag on it. t is a way to avoid residential taxes. The RV industry is a shambles but they are not building homes, they are building RV’s (albeit crappy ones) and all full timers do is complain that their “homes” aren’t built well. People are using the term RV to avoid having to obey housing rules. RV park owners are abusing these people for their own gain. And eventually, I think the HUD is going to stop the abuse by setting more stringent rules.
Having been a workamper I can tell you parks have been doing it for years. Once they do it monthly vs 30 days they no longer are long term but monthly which falls under different rules in most cities. Most parks we worked at would give you the 31st day for free but no the two short in February. The park I have been at the last 6 years (can’t move due to illness) they do the 30 days which means your due date is constantly changing. This year my due date will finally be back to the date we moved in.