Legislative Alert: SB 334

This bill would allow for counties to tax modular and mobile homes on their own land as real estate. Our concern is that it would later allow this law to be brought into our communities.

Terry Zeman, an active lobbyist for Illinois Housing Institute (IHI), a group representing landlord interests, explained at a meeting with MHOAI representatives and representatives from Illinois Manufactured Housing Association (IMHA), that he would not be opposed to each lot in a community to be taxed as real property, instead of personal property as we are now taxed. That way he would be able to sell each lot separately, and make more money.

Southern counties have approached the state trying to convince them we do not pay our fair share of taxes. While the intent of this bill may be only for those that own their own land and already pay real estate taxes on that land, even the county representatives agreed at a recent meeting, there was no guarantee that future legislation would not be able to prevent this from spilling over to our communities.

While meetings with interested parties have been held as recently as March 25th, MHOAI feels this bill could hurt the homeowners in the future. We wonder if farmers in our state know that by passing this bill, a mobile home they use only in the summer to harvest crops would now be taxed as real estate? What about those who choose a mobile home knowing they could not afford the higher taxes? This type of legislation is a threat to our communities and others who bought homes with the belief that the homes would continue being taxed as when bought. A new tax collection law has just been in place this year, which the counties will be receiving new revenue from, we feel they should at least wait and see what this brings into their funds.

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