Why the relocation fund can absorb that, for now

Because it is sitting on a substantial balance. The Authority's board minutes give a corrected Trust Fund figure of $15,165,374.26 as of March 31, 2026 — correcting a reported $14,672,079.84.

And because the cap that used to constrain it is gone. SB 144, effective the same September day, replaced the statutory $15 million cap with Board discretion: “The DMHRA Board may establish and adjust the cap on the Trust Fund based on the costs reasonably necessary to carry out the purposes of the Trust Fund.” Section 7041(c)(3) lets the Board, on three of five votes, authorise payments and adjust, eliminate or reinstate the assessment as well as the cap.

So the structure is coherent: a fund at roughly $15 million, a cap the Board now sets, and an assessment the Board can reinstate. What it is not is permanent. The fund pays out continuously — the same minutes record change-of-use caseloads totalling more than 130 households across three communities and benefits approved at $12,000 per single-wide — with no assessment income replenishing it.

The date nobody is discussing

Section 7042 still carries a bracket: the Trust Fund “[e]xpires July 1, 2029, unless terminated sooner or extended.”

That is under three years away. A fund with a sunset, no assessment income, a discretionary cap, and an active displacement caseload is a set of facts that will require a decision before then. We found nothing in the 153rd General Assembly addressing the 2029 date, and nothing is pre-filed for the 154th.

Why the money moved

The legal-aid side was running a deficit, and the numbers are on the record. The DOJ's report to the General Assembly under § 7046(d), covering July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, shows the Attorney Fund with a balance of $56,447.95 at year end, having spent $99,984.45 against $124,435.82 received. Community Legal Aid Society worked 211 cases and represented 204 homeowners and homeowners associations.⁴

Our separate report covers that fund's finances and the cases it paid for. Tripling its income from January 2026 addresses a documented shortfall in a fund that had roughly six months of spending left.

That is a defensible priority. It is also a transfer between two things residents need, funded by residents.

What each party should actually do

Community owners and managers. Use the 2026 MHR Tax Form, not a prior year's. The remittance amount changed, the landlord portion is zero, and the tenant portion is collected as additional rent. A community still remitting $2.50, or still splitting it, is filing against a form that no longer exists.

Residents. The $1.50 on your lot rent is a statutory pass-through, and from January 2026 it funds the legal-aid fund that pays for representation in rent-increase and eviction matters. If you need that representation, Community Legal Aid Society is the state's contractor.

Both. Do not rely on the Authority's published policy pages for any figure. Its Policies and Procedures page still describes a $5.00 monthly assessment and was last modified in November 2020; its FAQ describes a $4.50 assessment from January 2020. The operative figures are in the statute and the board minutes.

The pattern this fits

Delaware made three structural changes to manufactured-housing money inside twelve months, and they point the same direction: toward permanence and toward legal process, not toward more compensation.

SB 235 made the rent-increase calculations permanent in July 2026. A right of redemption covering manufactured-home lots took effect September 1, 2026. And this change funds the lawyers who use both.

What none of it does is raise the relocation benefit, cap lot rent, or address the infrastructure costs the state's own survey of 98 communities with on-site wastewater systems has begun to document — costs that are a permitted justification for an above-inflation rent increase.

What to watch next

Three things. Whether the Board reinstates any assessment to the Trust Fund, which it can now do on its own vote. Whether the FY2026 Attorney Fund report, due October 1, 2026, shows the redirect closing the deficit. And the July 1, 2029 expiry, which is the deadline nobody has yet named.