Montana zoning must treat manufactured homes like any other house — covenants excepted
Montana zoning must treat manufactured homes like any other house — covenants excepted
2026-09-15 · Montana · Legislation
What happened. Since October 1, 2025, Montana zoning cannot single out manufactured or factory-built housing — and for an association, the covenant is now the only barrier that remains.
The statute
Senate Bill 252, “Revise land use laws related to manufactured and factory built homes,” introduced by Sen. D. Fern, became Chapter 376, Laws of 2025. Signed May 5, 2025, effective October 1, 2025. It amended §§ 76-2-202, 76-2-302, 76-25-103, 76-25-303 and 77-1-902, MCA, requiring that municipal and county zoning regulations treat manufactured and factory-built housing the same as other types of residential property.1
The covenant carve-out
Both the county provision (§ 76-2-202) and the municipal provision (§ 76-2-302) now contain the same sentence:
“This section may not be construed to limit conditions imposed in historic districts, local design review standards, existing covenants, or the ability to enter into covenants pursuant to Title 70, chapter 17, part 2.”
The municipal version adds a constraint on local governments: “Local design review standards imposed by a local government must be clear, objective, and necessary to protect public health or safety or to comply with federal law.” That standard binds the city, not the association.
Tiny dwellings, too
The act also addresses tiny dwelling units, referencing “Appendix Q, tiny houses, of the International Building Code as it was printed on January 1, 2023” for units between 350 and 750 square feet, and requiring a permanent foundation and use “as a single-family dwelling for at least 45 days or longer.”
The pattern, and why it should make boards careful rather than comfortable
SB 252 is the third Montana statute in three years built the same way: open up the zoning, leave the covenants alone. The 2023 municipal ADU statute did it, the 2025 county ADU statute did it, and this one names the covenant chapter explicitly — Title 70, chapter 17, part 2, the very chapter amended twice in 2025 by House Bills 147 and 325.3
For an association whose declaration prohibits manufactured homes, modular construction, or dwellings below a minimum square footage, the covenant survives. But the practical exposure went up, not down, and the reason is arithmetic rather than law: with the zoning barrier removed, the covenant is now the only thing standing between the community and the use. It will be tested, and it will be tested alone.
That collides directly with Montana's 2025 enforcement standard. House Bill 147 defines “enforcement action” on a covenant as enforcement “equally and consistently … on all properties subject to the covenant over at least a 2-year period.” A minimum-square-footage or construction-type covenant that has been waived once, forgiven for a longstanding unit, or never applied to an outbuilding is a covenant with a documentary problem.
Three provisions worth locating in your own declaration
Not advice on any particular document — these are just the clauses that decide the question in practice, and boards frequently do not know which of them they have:
- A construction-type restriction. “No mobile home, modular home, or manufactured dwelling” is a different clause from a minimum-size clause, and older declarations often use terminology that no longer matches the statutory categories. “Mobile home” and “manufactured home” are not synonyms in Montana law.
- A minimum-square-footage or minimum-value requirement. This is the clause that does most of the actual work in Montana subdivisions, and it is neutral on construction method — which makes it both more defensible and broader than boards expect.
- A permanent-foundation or site-built requirement. Note that SB 252's own tiny-dwelling provisions require a permanent foundation, so a foundation covenant and the statute now point the same way.
Two related 2025 laws in the same area
- Senate Bill 174, Chapter 589 of the 2025 Laws, effective October 1, 2025, provides that recreational vehicles and mobile homes are reviewed as buildings for rent or lease, amending §§ 76-3-103, 76-3-504, 76-3-621, 76-8-101, 76-8-103 and 76-8-107, MCA.
- House Bill 785, Chapter 530, effective May 8, 2025, created an alternate process under § 15-1-116 for manufactured homes with missing identification tags to be treated as improvements to real property — a narrow fix with real consequences for title and taxation on older units.
What did not change for lot-rent communities
Montana's manufactured-home community law stood still in 2025, and the record is stark. House Bill 277 (minimum lease term for mobile home lot rentals), House Bill 305 (mobile home park dispute resolution program) and House Bill 873 (mobile home park emergency relocation account) all died in process on May 20, 2025. House Joint Resolution 41, which would have studied the Landlord Tenant Act and the Mobile Home Lot Rental Act, was tabled and died in committee.
So there is no interim study feeding the 2027 session on the lot-rental framework, and Montana has no rent-cap statute for these communities. One 2025 change did land: House Bill 810, Chapter 768, effective June 9, 2025, added to both § 70-24-201 and the Mobile Home Lot Rental Act at § 70-33-201 that “A landlord may not charge an additional fee based on rent payment type except to recoup an electronic bank fee incurred for electronic payment.” Park operators charging a card or portal convenience fee should have stopped in June 2025. Assessments are not rent, so on its terms that ban does not reach an association's own payment-portal fee — but managers running rentals and association billing on one platform should not assume the platform's fee structure is compliant on the rental side.2
Related Montana HOA Topics
- Senate Bill 252 (2025), enrolled bill — Chapter 376, Laws of 2025, manufactured and factory-built home zoning parity with the covenant carve-out (Montana Legislature document store) ↩
- House Bill 810 (2025), enrolled bill — Chapter 768, Laws of 2025, prohibiting fees based on rent payment type under §§ 70-24-201 and 70-33-201 ↩
- Montana Legislature Bill Explorer API — chapter numbers and effective dates for SB 252, SB 174, HB 785 and HB 810; final status of HB 277, HB 305, HB 873 and HJ 41 ↩
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