What the permanent framework actually does

The mechanism is a ceiling on what a community owner can raise without justifying it, keyed to inflation and recalculated as new data arrives.

Under § 7052A(c)(1), the Delaware State Housing Authority monitors CPI-U releases and, within five days of each, calculates the 24-month CPI-U and reports it to the Delaware Manufactured Home Relocation Authority. DEMHRA then certifies rent increases against it.

The current figures, from DEMHRA's own published notices:³

• Effective March 24, 2026 (corrected): 24-month CPI-U 3.330%, maximum increase without justification 5.165%
• Effective May 18, 2026: 3.842% / 5.421%
• Effective July 14, 2026: 4.357% / 5.678%

Above that ceiling, the owner must justify the increase, and a homeowners association or a sufficient group of residents may petition for arbitration. Our separate report covers the ceiling machinery and the calculation error DSHA made this spring.

The open question the permanence creates

Here is the part that needs care, because it is genuinely unresolved.

In July 2025 the Delaware Supreme Court held that only the direct costs of a capital improvement can justify an above-CPI-U increase — not return on investment, not depreciation, not the income tax the owner would owe on the higher rent. The court read the list at § 7052(d) as exhaustive and dismissed the general purpose clause at § 7050 as “the slender reed that… cannot support the substantial weight of the landlord's argument.”

That decision construed § 7052(d). SB 235 provides that the §§ 7052A/7052B calculations replace the grounds for an increase under § 7052.

We are not going to tell you what that does to the holding, because no Delaware court has said. The statutory-construction reasoning is intact — a general purpose clause still cannot override a specific operative one. But the specific provision it was applied to has been displaced for increases governed by the permanent calculations. Whether indirect costs can now be routed through the § 7052A/7052B arithmetic is an open question, and the first arbitration to test it will be the answer.

The amendments that were killed alongside it

Two attempts to narrow the formula's reach failed on the House floor, and they are worth recording because they show what the framework does not protect against.

Section 7052B lets a community owner raise rent when allowed expenses — including taxes — rise faster than the county's 24-month CPI-U. In August 2025, New Castle County school districts reset their tax rates under emergency legislation (HB 242), and apartment school-tax rates rose an average 55% countywide.

Representative Wilson-Anton filed HA 4, which would have barred a community owner from raising rent based on the 2025-26 school district tax increase, and HA 6, the statewide version. Both were stricken in the House on August 12, 2025, under a suspension of the rules, on the same day HB 242 passed both chambers and was signed.⁴

So residents of New Castle County manufactured home communities have no statutory shield against the school-tax reset flowing through to lot rent, and the permanent formula is the mechanism by which it does.

What it changes operationally

For community owners. The compliance regime is now the permanent one. Ninety days' notice, DEMHRA certification against the current ceiling, and a justification file for anything above it. There is no 2027 reversion to plan for.

For residents and homeowners associations. The petition-and-arbitration route under §§ 7052–7054 is likewise permanent, and it is time-bound: a meeting triggered where the increase exceeds CPI-U, a petition to DEMHRA for arbitration within 30 days, and an appeal to the Superior Court within 30 days of the arbitrator's decision. Missing a window forfeits the challenge on the merits.

Worth knowing about the volume: DEMHRA's board minutes record one new arbitration scheduled for 2026 — the first in three years — against 56 rent-increase certifications in March 2026 alone. Our report on that gap sets out the numbers.

What to watch next

The industry has asked for the opposite of this. A Manufactured Housing Subcommittee report dated February 17, 2025 — stamped “DRAFT” on every page — proposed grandfathering existing residents and excluding new buyers from rent control entirely. No bill implemented it, and the legislature moved the other way.

Nothing is pre-filed for the 154th General Assembly, which convenes January 2027. The next real signal is the first arbitration decided under the permanent framework.