Owning your slip is very beneficial to a floating home owner for several reasons we will outline in more detail below, including increasing your property values, decreasing your monthly moorage fees, and enjoying your home with greater stability and peace of mind. The goal of every rental moorage tenant should be to condominium-ize their marina, if you can afford to do it. When your marina owner decides it’s time to sell the marina and move on, you and your fellow tenants should do everything in your power to purchase the marina yourselves.
Currently, the law allows a marina owner to sell the property without any notice given to their tenants until after the deal is done which creates a missed opportunity for tenants to enjoy all the security and rewarding benefits of owning their slip.
YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO OWN YOUR SLIP COULD DISAPPEAR UNLESS YOU DO THIS REALLY EASY THING – Form a Marina Purchase Association and mail a letter. So easy!
STEP ONE: FORM A MARINA PURCHASE ASSOCIATION
A “Marina Purchase Association” is defined under Oregon law (ORS 90.100 [29]) as “a group of three or more tenants who reside in a marina and have organized for the purpose of eventual purchase of the marina.”
A “Tenant” is defined under Oregon law (ORS 90.100 [47][b]) as “a person who owns and occupies as a residence a manufactured dwelling or a floating home in a facility and persons residing with that tenant under the terms of the rental agreement.”
Get yourself and 2 other people together and declare yourself a Marina Purchase Association.
STEP TWO: MAIL A LETTER TO THE MARINA OWNER
As a Marina Tenants Association, send the marina owner a simple notice that you’d like to be notified at any future time when the marina owner is considering selling the marina, then the marina owner MUST, by law (ORS 90.805 and ORS 90.810), inform the association of its intent to sell the marina prior to listing it or accepting ANY offers in the future.
This is a fabulous tool that you can put to work for you now to protect your future interests in owning your own slip. Whenever the owner does decide it is time to sell, this mandatory notification buys the tenants time to organize and come up with an offer to buy the marina themselves. Additionally, ORS 90.820 gives the Marina Purchase Association a right of first refusal for any offer or agreement by the marina owner to sell the marina for a certain initial period of time.
WHY WOULD I WANT TO OWN MY SLIP?
Owning your slip increases your property value. Floating homes in a moorage where the slips are owned sell at $80,000 – $450,000 more than if the house were in a rented slip at the same moorage, depending on the moorage, the exact location of the slip and whether a garage or other amenities are included. This is due to several reasons outlined below.
- SLIP OWNERSHIP IS MORE STABLE and SECURE
When you own your slip, being evicted or kicked out of a moorage is much more difficult. The moorage is collectively owned by the homeowners. It is similar to a condo situation. Typically, HOA rules are much more lax and tend to be enforced to help everyone enjoy their properties. For example, you might receive a fine for breaking an HOA rule in a moorage where the floating home owners own their slips, whereas in a rental moorage, you may receive a notice to stop breaking the rule or else you will be evicted in 30 days. An HOA tends to govern in the best interests of all of the residents. Where a marina landlord tends to mange the marina in the best interest of the business and in order to generate the most profit.
- SLIP OWNERSHIP MONTHLY FEES ARE LOWER THAN RENTAL FEES
In a rental moorage, a home owner will pay slip rent to the landlord. In an owned moorage, HOA fees are paid by the home owner to the HOA and those fees serve to help manage the common areas and assets of the marina. As a slip owner, you become part of the Home Owners Association which owns the moorage as a cooperative entity and your monthly HOA fees are typically much lower in owner slips.
For example, most homeowners association fees range from $200 to $450 a month (Portland, 2018). Most moorage slip rental fees are about $500 to $750 per month.
CALL TO ACTION
Without the existence of a tenants association and an intent-to-sell notification request on file with the owner, your marina owner can sell the marina without ever letting you know that they are considering making an ownership change…
So, if you live in one of these rental moorages listed below and have not done so already, right now, you can protect yourselves by talking with your neighbors and organizing a tenants association for the express purpose of sending this request to your marina owner:
PORTLAND – COLUMBIA RIVER RENTAL MOORAGES
- Big Eddy Marina
- Ducks Marina
- Wil-Jan Moorage
- Bridgeton Harbor Moorage
- Kappler’s Moorage
- Bridgeton Road Moorage
- Harrison Moorage
- Columbia Harbor/Way West Moorage
- Osprey Landing
- 5 Cedars Moorage
- Meiier’s Marina
- Lotus Bridge Marina
- Buoy One
- Blue Frog Landing
- Suttle Road
- Island Cove
- Columbia Crossings – Row 9
PORTLAND – MULTNOMAH CHANNEL RENTAL MOORAGES
- Fred’s Marina
- Marina Way Moorage
- Larson’s Moorage
- Bridgeview Moorage
- Sauvie Island Moorage
- Mayfair Moorage
- Skyline Moorage
- Rocky Pointe Marina
- McCuddy’s Big Oak Marina
SCAPPOOSE – MULTNOMAH CHANNEL RENTAL MOORAGES
- Weilert Moorage
- River’s Bend Marina
- Paradise Moorage
- McCuddy’s Landing
- Lighthouse Marina
- Multnomah Channel Yacht Club
SAINT HELENS – COLUMBIA RIVER RENTAL MOORAGES
- Max’s Moorage
- Dillard’s Moorage
- St. Helens Marina
How Does Oregon Law Help Tenants Purchase your Marina?
A brief summary of the entire process of ORS 90.805 – 90.830 – Marina Purchase by Tenants
- Gather yourself and 2 additional legal tenants at the marina. ORS 90.100 [47][b])
- Call your group of 3 or more the “Marina Purchase Association”. ORS 90.100 (29)
- Send a notice to the marina owner which includes the following ORS 90.805(1) : “The Marina Purchase Association of (fill in the name of your marina) request notification, by first class mail to these (no more than 3) individual members of the Marina Purchase Association at the following addresses, in the event the marina becomes subject to a listing agreement for the sale of all or part of the marina.”
- List no more than 3 members of the Marina Purchase Association and their addresses.
- It is a good idea to sign and date the letter.
- ORS describes what forms of serving “written Notice” are allowed under the law, but to summarize, you can hand deliver the written notice to the landlord directly or mail it via first class mail. ORS 90.155 (1)
- If you have completed steps 1-3 above, then the marina owner must give written notice to the persons designated in your request (provided you did not list more than 3 individuals) as soon as all or any portion of the marina becomes subject to a listing agreement entered into by or on behalf of the owner. ORS 90.805 (2)
- The law states that the Marina Purchase Association must receive the owner notice within 10 days of receiving:
- ANY written offer by someone to purchase the marina which the marina owner intends to consider, OR
- ANY listing agreement to sell the marina. ORS 90.810
- If the Marina Purchase Association would like to compete with an offer the marina owner has received, it will need to then incorporate itself quickly into a Private, Cooperative or Non-Profit Corporation before making an offer to purchase the marina. ORS 90.815 Time is ticking at this point so it is a good idea to complete this step quickly.
- Within 14 days of receiving the notice detailed in 4 and 5 above from the marina owner, the Marina Purchase Association may notify the marina owner by either certified mail or personal service that the Marina Purchase Association is interested in purchasing the marina. ORS 90.820 (1)
- After the marina owner receives the notice detailed in 7 above, the owner must negotiate in good faith with the Marina Purchase Association and provide the group the opportunity to purchase the marina as the owner would any other third-party potential purchaser. During the first 14 days after the owner receives the notice detailed in 7 above, THE MARINA PURCHASE ASSOCIATION HAS A RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL FOR ANY OFFER OR AGREEMENT BY THE OWNER TO SELL THE MARINA. ORS 90.820 (2)
- Good luck!!!
NOTE: This process does not apply to (1) marina transfers in the event of an owner death, (2) marina transfers made a a gift, (3) marina transfers made by a corporation to an affiliate, (4) marina transfers made from one partner to another partner, (5) conveyance of an interest in the marina incidental to the financing of the marina, (6) conveyance through foreclosure, (7) a sale among joint tenants owning a marina, (8) an exchange of the marina for other real property, or (9) government purchase or eminent domain.
It’s that easy to enjoy all the benefits of owning your slip!
Feel free to contact us and let us know if you have organized and sent your letter of intent to your marina owner. We will remove your moorage name from the Call to Action list above.
FURTHER READING – The Seattle Story: Nearly ALL of Seattle’s floating homes are located in moorages where the home owners own their slips. This was accomplished by hundreds of floating home owners achieving protective legislation being passed at a time when landlords were forcing tenants to sell their homes for scrap – Read about their history here.