A Section 24 sale-interference grievance is an affirmative claim, not a rent-withholding defence. A resident with that complaint must plead it — not simply stop paying lot rent.

This is the same structural error Illinois courts corrected on the condominium side this year. In Kai v. Spring Hill Building 6, owners who believed a bulk sale was tainted by board self-dealing lost on causation because they had not perfected their Section 15 objection and appraisal rights — the court holding it was “failure to act under Section 15 that actually and proximately caused her damages.”

The pattern for residents and owners alike: Illinois statutes that give you a remedy expect you to use that remedy. Withholding payment, or refusing to participate in a process you believe is rigged, forfeits the protection rather than asserting it.

Why withholding is so tempting here

Because the leverage is so lopsided. A manufactured-home resident owns the home and rents the land. Moving the home costs more than many of these homes are worth, so the practical choice on a dispute is comply or abandon. Rent is the only lever the resident holds.

It is an understandable instinct and it produces exactly this outcome: an eviction judgment, and a Section 24 claim that was never brought and now sits behind it.

What a resident can do instead

Keep paying lot rent, and file the Section 24 claim separately. That preserves both positions. The Act's protections — on sale interference, on notice, on eviction grounds — are real, and they are enforced through claims.

Note also what the park owner keeps: the right to promulgate general qualifications or lawful restrictions on park residents. Screening criteria applied evenly to any prospective purchaser are not obstruction. Criteria invented for a particular sale are a different matter, and that is the fact question a Section 24 claim would put in issue.

The Illinois legislative backdrop

Residents of Illinois manufactured-home communities have gained protections in recent sessions — a right of first refusal on a park sale, restrictions on eviction grounds, and this year a bar on charging residents for common-area utilities with an 80% cap on unmetered pass-through.

What they do not have is a rent cap. HB 3526, which would have limited increases to 3% a year, cleared committee with 26 sponsors and died at adjournment.

What to watch next

No petition for leave to appeal was found. Whether Illinois courts get a properly pleaded Section 24 claim — there is no decided Illinois authority in this period construing what “general qualifications” a park owner may lawfully impose on a purchaser.