Tennessee Mobile Home Park Lease Law: What Operators Need to Include

What must a mobile home lot lease include in Tennessee?

Start with the honest baseline: Tennessee has no dedicated mobile-home-park or manufactured-housing-community tenancy act. There is no statewide statute that dictates a required list of lot-lease terms or disclosures the way some states do. What governs your lot lease depends almost entirely on which county the park sits in.

The only landlord-tenant statute that can reach a mobile home lot lease is the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA), T.C.A. 66-28-101 and following. Critically, the URLTA is population-gated. Under T.C.A. 66-28-102(a) it applies only in counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census or any subsequent federal census.

So there are effectively two Tennessee regimes. In a county over 75,000 people, the URLTA applies and sets both what you may put in the lease and a short list of clauses you may not. In a county at or below 75,000, the URLTA does not apply and the lot lease is controlled by the written contract itself plus general Tennessee contract and common law. Know which bucket each park is in before you draft.

URLTA counties: what the rental agreement may contain (T.C.A. 66-28-201)

In counties where the URLTA applies, T.C.A. 66-28-201 is your drafting charter. It provides that the landlord and tenant may include in a rental agreement terms and conditions not prohibited by this chapter or other rule of law including rent, term of the agreement, and other provisions governing the rights and obligations of parties.

In practice that means you have broad freedom to set the lot rent, the length of the term, and the rules of the park, as long as nothing conflicts with the URLTA or other law. The statute also fills gaps: where there is no lease agreement, the tenant owes the reasonable value for the use and occupancy of the dwelling unit, and rent is payable without demand at the time and place the parties agree.

The takeaway for operators is that the URLTA does not hand you a mandatory disclosure checklist for lot leases. It lets the written agreement do the work, then overlays a small set of protections and prohibitions that your lease must respect.

URLTA counties: prohibited provisions you cannot put in the lease (T.C.A. 66-28-203)

The clearest hard limit in a URLTA county is T.C.A. 66-28-203. It states that a rental agreement may not provide that the tenant (1) authorizes any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement, or (2) agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord to the tenant arising under law or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or the costs connected with such liability.

In plain terms: no confession-of-judgment clause, and no clause that waives, caps, or shifts (indemnifies) the landlord's own liability onto the tenant. Under subsection (b), any prohibited provision is unenforceable, a landlord who willfully uses a lease known to contain prohibited provisions is exposed to the tenant's actual damages, and the tenant cannot agree to waive or forego rights or remedies under the chapter.

One honest nuance worth flagging to your legal team: Tennessee's current statute lists only these two prohibited clauses. That is narrower than the four-part list in the model uniform act. A 2011 amendment trimmed Tennessee's URLTA and moved the anti-waiver rule into subsection (b) rather than keeping it as a separate numbered prohibition, and it dropped a standalone attorney-fee prohibition. Do not assume the older four-item uniform version applies in Tennessee.

The population gate, and what governs in small counties (T.C.A. 66-28-102)

Everything above turns on T.C.A. 66-28-102(a), which limits the URLTA to counties over 75,000 people per the 2010 or a later federal census. Larger metro and suburban counties (for example the Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga areas) are typically covered; many rural counties are not. Confirm the current census figure for the specific county before you rely on the URLTA.

In a county at or below 75,000 population, the URLTA simply does not apply to your lot lease. There is no mobile-home-park substitute statute waiting behind it. That means the lot lease is governed by ordinary Tennessee contract law and common-law landlord-tenant principles, plus any generally applicable statutes and any local county or municipal ordinance, zoning, and health rules that touch mobile home parks.

This is a double-edged sword. In a non-URLTA county the written lease carries more weight because there is no statutory floor voiding confession-of-judgment or exculpation clauses. That means the lease itself, and how carefully you draft it, is doing almost all of the protective work for both sides. It also means tenants have fewer statutory remedies, which is exactly why documentation and fair drafting matter.

Lease requirements at a glance in Tennessee

• No dedicated MHP act
  Tennessee has no mobile-home-park or manufactured-housing-community tenancy statute; there is no state-mandated lot-lease disclosure checklist.
• URLTA is population-gated
  T.C.A. 66-28-102(a): the URLTA applies only in counties over 75,000 population per the 2010 or a later federal census. Check the county first.
• Freedom of terms in URLTA counties
  T.C.A. 66-28-201 lets the parties set rent, term, and other rights and obligations, so long as nothing is prohibited by the chapter or other law.
• No confession of judgment
  T.C.A. 66-28-203(a)(1) voids any clause authorizing a person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the lease.
• No landlord exculpation or indemnity
  T.C.A. 66-28-203(a)(2) voids clauses that exculpate or limit the landlord's liability or make the tenant indemnify the landlord for it.
• Prohibited clauses are void, waivers barred
  T.C.A. 66-28-203(b): prohibited provisions are unenforceable, willful use exposes the landlord to the tenant's actual damages, and tenants cannot waive chapter rights.
• Small counties: contract law only
  At or below 75,000 population the URLTA does not apply; the written lease plus general Tennessee contract and common law, and any local ordinance, governs.

Operator best practices in Tennessee

• Confirm the county's URLTA status first
  Before drafting, verify the park's county population against the latest federal census to know whether the URLTA (T.C.A. 66-28-102) applies to that lot lease.
• Maintain two lease templates
  Keep a URLTA-compliant version for covered counties and a contract-based version for small counties, so you never accidentally use a void clause or an under-protective one.
• Strip prohibited clauses in URLTA counties
  Remove any confession-of-judgment, exculpation, liability-limitation, indemnify-the-landlord, or waiver-of-rights language; under 66-28-203 they are unenforceable and willful use invites damages.
• Draft small-county leases carefully
  Where the URLTA does not apply, the written lease does the protective work; be explicit and fair on rent, term, notice, fees, and park rules because there is no statutory backstop.
• Spell out rent, term, and fees clearly
  Use the 66-28-201 freedom of terms to state rent amount, due date, term length, and park rules unambiguously in every lot lease.
• Watch local ordinances and county rules
  Mobile home parks can be reached by county zoning, health, and utility ordinances even where no state tenancy act applies; check the local layer.
• Do not assume the uniform four-clause list
  Tennessee's 66-28-203 is narrower than the model act; have counsel confirm current statutory text rather than importing another state's prohibited-provision list.
• Build a relationship with a Tennessee MHP attorney
  Because coverage flips county by county and the statute has been amended, have a Tennessee mobile-home-park attorney review your templates and any lease changes before rollout.