Seven Iowa manufactured-home bills, none enacted — including the one landlords wanted
Seven Iowa manufactured-home bills, none enacted — including the one landlords wanted
2026-09-10 · Iowa · Legislation · Did not pass
Iowa Code chapter 562B governs manufactured home communities and mobile home parks. Seven bills in the 91st General Assembly tried to change it. Every one of them is dead. The General Assembly adjourned sine die on May 3, 2026, and Iowa bills do not carry over.
Why this belongs in an association column
Because chapter 562B produces association-shaped problems without association-law remedies.
A manufactured-home resident owns the home and rents the land. That structure generates the same pressures a badly run association does — escalating mandatory monthly payments, deteriorating shared infrastructure, no effective owner voice — with no board to elect, no covenant to enforce, and no fiduciary duty to sue on. The only lever is the legislature.
The six resident-protection bills
SF 2225 (Sen. Zach Wahls and six co-sponsors) was the substantial one — twenty pages, and the fullest statement of what residents are asking for. Just-cause termination, limiting cancellation to material noncompliance, material rule violation, another chapter 562B ground, a “legitimate and material business reason, the impact of which is not specific to one tenant,” or a land-use change the agreement makes grounds for termination. A consumer-fraud hook making any landlord violation of chapter 562B an unlawful practice under § 714.16, carrying injunctive relief, disgorgement and civil penalties up to $40,000 per violation. And on rent: repeal of the 2022 change to the definition of “rent,” 180 days' written notice of any increase (up from 90), no increase taking effect less than one year after the last, and a cap on increases above the 36-month average Midwest CPI-U unless specified conditions were met. Introduced February 10, 2026; subcommittee named; no meeting ever held; dead at the first funnel, February 20, 2026.1
HF 481 (Reps. Josh Judge and Sean James) came closest of any 2025 bill. It would have barred more than one rent increase per calendar year, excepting increases reasonably necessary because of insurance premium rises or infrastructure expenses the tenant pays under the agreement. Its subcommittee recommended passage on March 5, 2025. The full Judiciary committee never voted before the March 7 funnel.2
SSB 1011 is the one that complicates the partisan reading: a Local Government committee bill from Republican chairman Scott Webster, on water service. It would have let residents hold direct accounts with the water system rather than being billed through a master meter, with the landlord paying for submeters, retaining responsibility for the community's private water infrastructure, and notifying existing tenants. Subcommittee recommended passage January 30, 2025. The full committee never reported it.
HF 482 (Judge and James) was the one-sentence just-cause bill. Re-referred to Judiciary March 3, 2025; no subcommittee was ever appointed after the re-referral. HF 2551 (Rep. Larry McBurney) would have capped increases at the greater of the 12-month Midwest CPI-U or the assessor's valuation increase, and extended the 90-day notice rule to conventional dwelling units. HF 740 (Rep. Tracy Turek and eight others) used the same structure but at three times CPI. Both were introduced and referred and received no further action at all.
SF 412: the bill that got furthest, and still failed
The seventh bill ran the other way, and its fate is the part of this story that has been most widely misreported.
Senate File 412 — “relating to property law, including rent, rental agreements, notice requirements, and possession of property” — passed the Senate 34-16 on May 12, 2025 after amendment S-3148. It went to the House, was re-referred to Ways and Means on May 15, and sat.
In 2026 it moved again: subcommittee assigned April 20, subcommittee recommended passage and the full committee approved it 17-7 on April 21, and it was placed on the Ways and Means calendar on April 22, 2026.
That is its last recorded action. The House never brought it to a floor vote, and the General Assembly adjourned sine die eleven days later. SF 412 is dead, and the legislature's own status flag still reads “Passed Senate” — which is a description of how far it got, not of where it ended. Anything describing it as pending or awaiting House action is out of date.3
What it would have done: defined “rent” under chapter 562A to include base rent, utilities, late fees and other payments, matching a 2022 change to chapter 562B; converted the prohibition on using an unlawful lease provision into a prohibition on enforcing one; allowed a landlord access to a tenant-owned mobile home after an order of removal, to secure the home or the lot; deemed notice to “all tenants and unknown parties in possession” valid when posted on the primary entrance door and mailed; extended the peaceable-possession bar from 30 days to 90 days; and allowed a plaintiff in a forcible entry and detainer action to dispose of remaining personal property — expressly not including a mobile home or its contents unless the mobile home is the premises.
What the pattern shows
Read together, the seven bills describe a legislature that did not choose a side so much as decline to engage.
Three of the seven cleared a subcommittee or a committee. Not one reached a floor vote in the second chamber. The resident bills died at first funnels, mostly without a meeting; the landlord bill died on a calendar in the second chamber's tax committee, with three weeks of session left.
The sponsorship is worth noting too, because it cuts against the easy reading. Five of the six resident-protection bills were minority-party measures, which explains their reception. SSB 1011 was not — it was a Republican committee chairman's own bill, on water submetering, and it also went nowhere after a favourable subcommittee. Some of what stalled here stalled for reasons other than partisanship.
Why the submetering bill matters beyond mobile-home parks
SSB 1011 deserves attention from condominium and homeowner association boards even though it never touched them, because it is the mobile-home-park version of a fight that runs straight through common-interest housing: who holds the utility account, who reads the meter, and who carries the private infrastructure.
The bill's structure — residents billed directly by the utility for their own consumption, the operator paying for submeters and retaining full legal and financial responsibility for the private water infrastructure and its repairs — is the arrangement many Iowa associations with master-metered water are periodically urged to adopt. The unglamorous half is the second clause. Submetering shifts consumption billing to the resident; it does not shift the pipes, and the pipes are the expensive part.
An association considering the change should treat the infrastructure responsibility as the main term rather than the footnote.
What to watch next
The 92nd General Assembly convenes January 11, 2027. Every one of these bills must be re-introduced from scratch. The practical deadline for a 2027 bill to exist is February 12, 2027, when individual legislators' draft requests are due to the Legislative Services Agency; the first funnel is March 5, 2027.
Nothing on manufactured housing is pre-filed, and no interim study committee on housing was authorised for the 2026-27 interim — the only two seated concern early childhood and industrial new jobs training. The tell, when the session opens, will be whether any of these bills gets a subcommittee meeting. That is the step six of the seven never reached.
Related Iowa HOA Topics
- SF 2225 bill history, Iowa General Assembly (died at first funnel, Feb. 20, 2026) ↩
- HF 481 bill history, Iowa General Assembly (subcommittee recommended passage Mar. 5, 2025) ↩
- SF 412 bill history, Iowa General Assembly (passed Senate 34-16; last action Apr. 22, 2026) ↩
- SSB 1011 bill history, Iowa General Assembly (water service in manufactured home communities) ↩
Stay on top of Iowa HOA law
Every week: new Iowa legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.