LONG BEACH, CA, UNITED STATES, August 19, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — California’s Park Manager Training Program (PMTP) deadline has passed. Every mobilehome and RV park in the state was required to have at least one certified, trained manager in place by May 1, 2026. According to compliance data published by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), 2,389 of the state’s 5,218 active parks — 46 percent — remained pending compliance as of August 18, 2026, having neither certified a manager nor secured one of the program’s two narrow exemptions.
For those 2,389 parks, the risk is now attached to the one document that allows them to legally stay open. Local enforcement agencies are required to verify that a park has at least one certified or exempt manager before issuing that park’s annual permit to operate.
Under California Health and Safety Code Section 18700, a willful violation of the Mobilehome Parks Act can result in suspension or revocation of the permit to operate, civil penalties of up to $500 for each violation — or for each day of a continuing violation, and misdemeanor prosecution carrying a fine of up to $400, up to 30 days’ imprisonment, or both. Applied across a multi-park portfolio, those per-day penalties compound quickly.
Owners should not assume they are exempt. The program permits an exemption in only two circumstances — the manager holds a valid California real estate license, or the park is a temporary recreational vehicle park, incidental camping area, or tent camp — and the exemption must be applied for through HCD’s Park Owner/Operator portal. It is not granted automatically, and the annual $350 certificate fee applies either way.
“Nearly twenty-four hundred parks is not a rounding error — that is half the state operating on borrowed time,” said Yvette Hitchens, Founder of The MH Trainer and an HCD-approved PMTP provider. “I am hearing from owners who assumed this would get pushed, or that someone in the office had handled it. It did not get pushed, and in a lot of cases nobody handled it. The good news is this is one of the easiest compliance problems in the industry to fix. It is six to eight hours online. You can be certified this week.”
