Australian Law on Mobile Homes

In Australia regulation is at the state level.

It uses the US term manufactured home, but means the same as a mobile home.

The term manufactured home tends to refer to an industry, as opposed to the more recent tiny homes on wheels movement, in which DIY persons buy a trailer and make a one-off cabin on top of it.

In NZ, there needs to be affordable codification for certainty within the mobile home industry as well as separate, yet affordable, standards for DIY tiny homes.

The most important element in any approval process is affordability. A mobile home that meets the highest health, safety and environmental standards but where the cost of consent is more than a week’s rent (in some cases is $40,000 on an $80,000 / $300 wk unit), those high standards are meaningless because they result in the potential occupant remaining as hidden homeless, living in a car, tent or overcrowded conditions.

 

Australia Law on Mobile Homes / Manufactured Homes

NSW  Local Government (Manufactured Home Estates and Manufactured Homes) Regulation 1995.

QLD Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003

For example, in Queensland:

10 What is a manufactured home

(1) A manufactured home is a structure, other than a caravan or tent, that—

(a) has the character of a dwelling house; and

(b) is designed to be able to be moved from one position to another; and

(c)is not permanently attached to land.

(2) A manufactured home does not include a converted caravan.

(3) However, if a park owner and the owner of a converted caravan enter into an agreement, that would be a site agreement if it related to a manufactured home, for a site on which the converted caravan is positioned or intended to be positioned—

(a) the converted caravan is taken to be a manufactured home; and

(b)the agreement is taken to be a site agreement.

(4) To remove any doubt, it is declared that an agreement entered into under another Act or a former Act, other than the repealed Mobile Homes Act 1989, is not a site agreement under subsection (3).

Example— A residential tenancy agreement entered into under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 is not a site agreement under subsection (3).