Passed the Delaware House 39-0, then sat in a Senate committee for 14 months and died
Passed the Delaware House 39-0, then sat in a Senate committee for 14 months and died
2026-08-30 · Delaware · Legislation · Did not pass
HB 39 is the clearest illustration this session of how a Delaware bill dies without anyone voting against it. It passed the House of Representatives 39 to 0 on April 15, 2025. It was then assigned to the Senate Housing & Land Use Committee, docketed once for June 11, 2025, never reported out, and never re-docketed in the entire 2026 session. It died at adjournment on June 30, 2026 — roughly fourteen and a half months after clearing the House unopposed.
The prime sponsor was Representative Bill Carson, with Senator Hoffner as additional sponsor and Representatives Hilovsky, Snyder-Hall and Harris as cosponsors.1
What it would have required of community owners
The bill amended the Manufactured Homes and Manufactured Home Communities Act at 25 Del. C. ch. 70, and its maintenance provisions were specific rather than general.
Standing water. The community owner would have been expressly responsible for maintaining bulkheads, streets and grounds so that standing water does not accumulate. Drainage and flooding are, on the state's own complaint records, among the most persistent conditions residents report — particularly in Sussex County.
Utilities up to the home. Responsibility for all landlord-provided utilities and services up to the physical connection to the manufactured home. That line matters because the split between the community's infrastructure and the homeowner's own equipment is where liability arguments usually sit.
Trees. The root systems, limbs and trunks of trees in common areas — and a replacement of the tree-care standard. The existing statute references the American Association of Nurserymen, which ceased to exist on January 1, 2014. HB 39 would have substituted the ANSI A300 standards.
The two changes that were not about maintenance at all
A quiet extension of every short deadline in Chapter 70. Section 7002(c) currently excludes weekends and legal holidays from Chapter 70 periods of under seven days. HB 39 would have raised that to periods of 12 days or less.
That sounds like drafting housekeeping and is not. Chapter 70's cure and notice windows are short by design, and the 12-day noncompliance cure period at § 7016(b)(2) is the one that decides manufactured-home evictions. Excluding weekends and holidays from a 12-day window adds roughly four calendar days to it, every time. In a Sussex County case decided in May 2026, a lease terminated because the tenant took no corrective action within exactly that period.
Business invitees are not “guests.” The bill would have clarified that a business invitee is not a tenant's “guest” or “visitor.” Chapter 70 makes tenants answerable for their guests' conduct, so the classification determines whether a homeowner is liable for what a contractor or delivery driver does on the lot.
Where it stalled, and what that says
The full action history is short:
- 3/6/25 — Introduced and Assigned to Housing Committee in House
- 3/25/25 — Reported Out of Committee (Housing) in House with 7 On Its Merits
- 4/15/25 — Amendment HA 1 introduced, placed with bill, passed by voice vote
- 4/15/25 — Passed By House. Votes: 39 YES 2 ABSENT
- 4/15/25 — Assigned to Housing & Land Use Committee in Senate
Then one committee docketing on June 11, 2025 with no report, and silence through the whole of 2026.
A unanimous House vote followed by fourteen months of Senate committee inaction is not a story about opposition on the record. It is a story about a bill that nobody was willing to kill and nobody prioritised. Whatever the reason, the effect is identical to a defeat: the maintenance duties are not law.
What Chapter 70 requires now
The existing maintenance obligations remain general rather than itemised, and the obsolete tree-care reference stays on the books. A resident dealing with standing water, a failing utility connection or an unmaintained tree is arguing from the general duty and from the lease, not from an express statutory list.
Two other routes did open in the same period, and both apply to residents.
A pattern of violations is now consumer fraud. SB 40, effective September 3, 2025 (85 Del. Laws c. 205), added § 7005(c): a landlord's pattern or practice of violating subchapters I through V is “deemed an unlawful practice under § 2513 of Title 6” where the condition was not caused by the tenant's want of due care, the landlord had actual notice, failed to correct in a timely way, and the condition created a risk to health, safety or property. The same Act let the Attorney General petition for a receivership under § 7061 and intervene in any such action.2
So the enforcement architecture for bad conditions got stronger in 2025 even as the itemised duties failed. Our report on the September 2025 package sets out SB 40 in full.
And the state is now cataloguing the infrastructure. DNREC's statewide wastewater assessment has identified 98 manufactured home communities with on-site treatment or disposal systems, many predating any records. That is a documentation exercise, not an enforcement one — but it produces the evidence a § 7005(c) claim needs.
What to watch next
Reintroduction in the 154th General Assembly from January 2027 is the only route, and nothing is pre-filed. Representative Carson remains in office; a bill that passed one chamber unanimously is an unusually easy one to refile.
The Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association, which tracks and sponsors legislation in this area, publishes no forward-looking 2027 agenda as of this writing; its bills page lists only measures already enacted. Its general meeting is scheduled for September 28, 2026 in Georgetown, which is a plausible venue for a 2027 agenda to surface. That is an observation about timing, not a report that anything has been announced.
Related Delaware HOA Topics
Stay on top of Delaware HOA law
Every week: new Delaware legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.