OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
If you are an Oregon Manufactured Home Park or Marina resident who owns their home, but rents the space or slip in which your home is located, then we are here for you.
OSTA is your support network, a trusted source of information about your rights, and your advocate for more secure housing through improved legislation.
Through these efforts and initiatives, we enhance your quality of life.
OSTA is a nonprofit, grassroots organization that seeks direction from members, avoiding a top-down approach, regarding decision-making on critical issues affecting members’ lifestyle choices, quality of life, and rights as residents in manufactured housing and floating home communities.
OSTA works to provide an expanding array of programs, information, and services to its members. It is an organization focused, not only on protecting the rights of homeowners as residents in parks and marinas but an organization that supports all aspects of manufactured and floating home living.
To enable this to happen we rely on members, teams, and colleagues, across the state who support this common vision. This work requires time, investment, and dedication to serve our 80,000+ residents and we rely solely on memberships and donations to achieve our goals.
Join OSTA Link
https://oregontenants.com/membership-account/membership-levels/
OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
UPDATES-Check Issues, Conference Updates, and Advice for Oregon Tenants
Navigating tenant rights in Oregon just got clearer. The Oregon State Tenants Association brings you crucial updates on several fronts affecting manufactured home community residents throughout the state.
We've identified and resolved a persistent issue with check processing that had caused delays for many members. Your financial support now has two pathways – traditional checks sent to our new dedicated address in Phoenix, Oregon (105 West Bolz Road #1587, Phoenix, OR 97535) or convenient electronic payment options like PayPal and Venmo. This dual approach ensures your contributions reach us quickly and efficiently, eliminating the frustrating delays some have experienced.
Mark your calendars for October 4th, 2025! Our long-awaited conference returns to the Hilton Garden Inn in Springfield from 11 AM to 3 PM. At just $25 per ticket (the same price as 2019!), this gathering promises valuable information, networking opportunities, and a chance to shape OSTA's future priorities. We're particularly excited to offer guests who aren't current members a complimentary one-year membership with their ticket purchase – a perfect introduction to our community of advocates.
Perhaps most importantly, we're clarifying critical information about the new rent increase law (HB 3054A) taking effect September 1st, 2025. For any rent increase to be valid, landlords must have provided proper 90-day notice before June 1st. Despite what some landlords might claim, they cannot bypass these requirements through lease agreements that pre-establish increases. The law is clear: proper notice with specific information is required for each increase, regardless of what rental agreements state. And remember – automatic rent payments from your bank account could put you at a disadvantage during disputes. Maintaining control over your payment authorizations preserves your essential rights as a tenant.
Subscribe to our channel to help us reach the threshold for live programming, where we'll answer your questions in real-time and continue building this vital community of informed Oregon tenants!
New Mailing Address for All Checks and Payments
OSTA Membership
105 W. Bolz Rd #1587
Phoenix, OR 97535
Join OSTA Link
Comments or Questions for the Podcast
Email: bbateman@oregontenants.com
Copyright OSTA2045,2025 Not for rebroadcast w/o express written permission. Please share and download for educational purposes with attribution.
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Well, hi everybody, you have questions and we have answers, so come on in and let's get this thing rolling. Hello everybody, I'm Bill Bateman, part of the team here at OSTA, the Oregon State Tenants Association, and we've had a lot of questions come up in the past couple of weeks. A lot of them related to the bill, a lot of them related to checks and some of them related to the conference. So let's start out First of all on the subject of checks. Where are they? Here's a problem we have had. We've identified the problem and we have fixed it. So if you have sent us a check and it hasn't cleared yet, that's because of a problem with the forwarding agent we have. You see the way we're set up. Our main office is in Eugene that's the one you see on the website and 98% of that works out pretty well. But we now have a new treasurer living in Southern Oregon, so the checks have to be sent by mail from Eugene to Southern Oregon.
Bill Bateman:You can see where this is going. The forwarding agent had a problem and then it got caught in the mail and the bottom line is some of you sent checks and they just never showed up in your check cash box. All right, enough of that. We're not going to do that anymore. We have a brand new address for you and it's going to be posted on this podcast. It's going to be posted on the website. So here's how it's going to work. If you have business with the main office in Eugene, simply mail it to the Eugene office address, 1574 Cogberg Road, number 294.
Bill Bateman:Now, if you're sending in a check a check for membership, a check for the OSTIC conference, a check to make a donation, for whatever reason we have a separate address to mail your checks to. You want to send those to 105 West Bowles Road, b-o-l-z Road number87 in phoenix, oregon, 97535, and you don't have to worry about backing up and writing this down. It's going to be posted where you find this podcast. So it's a separate address. Send your checks to the bulls road address in phoenix o. It'll be a lot quicker. They'll get deposited within a couple of days instead of sometimes up to a month, and no more things getting lost because there are two of us right here in this area on top of solving the problem. So the great check backup of 2025 is over. We found the problem, we have fixed the problem and you now have an address to send your information to quickly.
Bill Bateman:Another part of that and this is kind of important some people we found we'd actually checked our invoice box and found that about half of you send us checks and half of you like to use things like PayPal, venmo, online payment methods such as that. Excellent Won't be happy to take it, however you wish to send it. I can tell you that it has been taking longer to do checks, so we will make sure that we still have PayPal active. For example, when you do your membership, you have an option to do it via PayPal and hopefully we can begin transitioning away from paper checks, especially as the US mail seems to be having more and more difficulty. So we do have online methods available for you. You can still send us a check if you want to. No problem, we're happy to have it and thank you for your support.
Bill Bateman:But let's look at some of those other electronic methods that are actually somewhat less cumbersome and doesn't cost you. What is it like? 75, 80 cents for a stamp now, plus you've got to go to the post office. So you have choices. You now have options Send your, your memberships or your conference registrations to the new address, the one in Phoenix, oregon, or do it online with the electronic options. We're trying to make this as simple for you as we possibly can. So thank you for your concerns. If you've written me a letter saying what happened to my check, that's what's happened to your check. We did get a large bunch of them and they all got deposited. So check your statements. You should see it clearing anytime soon. In fact, I bet it already has that's item one checks.
Bill Bateman:Second is the conference, and a lot of people are already registering. We're starting to see some good sales and, thank you. That helps us plan, because we have to pre-order things like sandwiches. You don't want to be ordering food at the last minute because you end up going to the drive-thru. So sign up for your OSTA conference. Now, when is that? You query A fair question October 4th, 2025, from 11 to 3, and that's going to be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Springfield, oregon. That's on Gateway Street in Springfield and the tickets, and I like this a lot. We talked about it and decided we haven't had a conference since 2019, so we're going to charge you the 2019 price. Tickets were $25, then they're $25 now.
Bill Bateman:Someone asked about bringing a guest. If you buy a guest a ticket, we'll give them a membership, if they're not already a membership. Now, they won't be a voting member until we get the membership membership process, but it'd be nice to welcome them into the family at the conference. So buy a ticket for a guest and that guest gets a free one-year membership. That's kind of exciting. The menu has come together. It's looking very, very good. We're lining up the activities and it's something you're going to want to be a part of, just like how we're seeing a lot of folks already sending in their money. So we're looking forward to seeing you. This is going to be a great event.
Bill Bateman:Okay, we talked about the conference. We talked about the check issue. Let's talk about your questions, and there's a lot of them. I'm going to give two kind of overall general answers on things that have come through, and then we're going to be starting a new feature where you can actually send in your questions and we're going to answer them live in a broadcast like this. Now, to do that, we need you to become a subscriber. The more people that subscribe to this channel. It doesn't cost you anything. Just click the little button that says subscribe. That helps us reach a certain level where we're taken seriously by our friends at YouTube so they know we're not fooling around, we're an actual organization. So your subscription will help us get status so we can start doing some live feeds, some live programming that you can be a part of. So more information is coming on that we're hammering out the dents right now and watch this space. We're going to have more information soon. All right, two things that a lot of people are just not clear.
Bill Bateman:On the new rent Basically, it takes place on September. The 1st September, the 1st of 2025, is when the new law, hb 3054A, takes effect. For a rent increase to be valid, it must have been sent out 90 days prior to that law taking place. What does that mean? That means June 1st of this year or before is when you should have gotten a rent increase notice. For example, I got one on April 5th. Okay, that meets the criteria. That rent notice is valid. Okay, that meets the criteria, that rent notice is valid. However, if you get a rent notice on July 7th, it doesn't count. It's not valid under state law.
Bill Bateman:And a lot of people are trying to. We had a report that some landlords are asking people to quote statutes and quote legal information. And the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is it's your landlord's responsibility to know and to follow the law. You, as a tenant, are no way under an obligation to look up chapter and section, to share it with your landlord. That's the job they have. That is their legal responsibility. We've had some people who have tried to kind of extend the deadline through some devious tactics. So let's look at what a lease or rental agreement actually is. Okay, lease is synonymous with rental agreement. The term or length of a rental contract doesn't matter 30 days or 30 years, it's still a rental agreement.
Bill Bateman:A lease stating a rent increase each year does not exempt the landlord from complying with the law, including annual notice requirements. This means the landlord must provide 90 days notice each year which contains all the required information the effective date, the amount, the percentages and etc. Failure to do this each time the landlord wants to increase the rent means the increase is unlawful. The increase amount must also comply with the law, so that any increase that exceeds the legally allowable amount is illegal. To put it another way, a rental agreement stating the landlord intends to increase the rent each year does not meet the requirements of the law, regardless of how much increase of a rental agreement might state it cannot exceed what the law allows. For example, a rent increase that doubles the rent would not be legal. A landlord cannot contract out of the application of the law. 30-year rental agreements are valid. The landlord expressed a desire to increase rents in the agreements, but this does not amount to a rent increase.
Bill Bateman:To implement a rent increase, the landlord must follow the procedures set by law. The rental agreement does not change that law or what the landlord is required to do when they want to increase the rent. Now, if a rent increase was not correctly implemented, it is not legal. Given the situation where this occurred, I'd advise the tenants well, you're going to have to pay the amount before the unlawful increase. There is a safe harbor provision in the law for a tenant who withholds rent because they have a good faith belief the rise is unlawful. In other words, it's time for you, as tenants, to start exercising your legal rights. And here's another question that came up, and then we'll move on to finishing things up.
Bill Bateman:For today, a lot of folks have your rent automatically taken from your bank account. I'm hearing it's not a good idea to do this under any circumstances, and here's why it may be convenient and it may never be a problem, but it could cause major difficulties in certain situations. The recent issue of an unlawful rent increase is one example. Sometimes the landlord will simply take the increased amount without asking. We told you we were increasing the rent 90 days ago and you didn't object back then. Okay, once the landlord unlawfully takes money, it's a lot harder to get it back than if you didn't send it at all. Don't think for a minute. Landlords are not aware of this fact and, by the way, this gives someone's access to your bank account and many, many managers have been discovered to have criminal backgrounds before they were hired, and that might not be information we, as tenants, want other people to have. It makes withholding some or all of the rent difficult when there's a dispute or a failure of the landlord to perform their obligations under the Oregon rental law agreement.
Bill Bateman:Rent withholding is an essential right that tenants should never give up. It's best to have this option and remember it every time you pay the rent. That way, you won't forget. You have this power. There are more situations when a tenant should be in complete control of when and how a payment should be made. I'm not saying don't pay directly from the bank, just that it should never be automatic. Payments should always require the tenant to take positive action. Payments should never be made automatically unless the tenant stops it. That would mean a tenant would have to authorize a payment each month by choice. Better safe than sorry or lazy.
Bill Bateman:And now, if you're making excuses in the back of your head when they hear this why it's okay to have an automatic payment, consider why you feel you need to make excuses instead of protecting yourselves Just because you've had a good experience with your current manager and never had any problems. Just remember it takes only one incidence and you'll be very sorry. Don't be fooled. The landlords and their agents are not your friends. This is business and the purpose is to make and take money from the tenants. May sounds a little cynical, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially in these contentious times. So these are just a couple of the questions we've got. We're going to be posting answers to these. We're also going to include the legal sections for folks who like to have that information when you look at the Oregon codes and that is available on the OSTA website. Your questions we're trying to get them answered. The check problem that's been resolved. We're trying to get them answered. The check problem that's been resolved.
Bill Bateman:The conference has come together and we want to get that building as full as we did when we had our testimony in front of the Senate and the House of Representatives. I'd like to see every one of you come on up and have a sandwich with us, get to meet us and help us plan for the next year. Remember that's one of the events. One of the sessions will be what would you like to see us working on in the year to come? Get those conference tickets. Remember the new address. If you're sending in a check, there's an address for you to do that. That's here as you sign into the program, and we're going to have actually some live programs here, as long as you hit subscribe and help us get enough subscribers to get, I guess, certified here on YouTube. So that's what's going on at Osta. Be safe, stay cool, be ready in case there's a fire in your area, know your zones, know your escape routes. Serious times, these are serious things. To be alert, take care. We'll see you soon.
