2018, retired scientists Debbie and Randy Blough didn’t know much about mobile homes. But they were volunteering together at the Honey Brook Food Pantry in a poorer part of Chester County, when pantry leader Ken Ross introduced them to a young family who owned a mobile home and was being pushed over the edge financially by a jaw-droppingly high real estate tax bill."We're going to do something about this,” Debbie told Randy as they left the pantry that day.
What about the land under mobile homes? Doesn’t that appreciate? It may, but about half of mobile home dwellers don’t own the land that sits under their houses. Instead, they rent a pad in a dedicated park. Almost all states consider a mobile home personal property–the same as a car–at original purchase, but the tax treatment typically changes once the home is moved to its final destination, even if the mobile homeowner doesn't own the land.
, with funding from United Way, which pays the $25 appeal filing fee for each homeowner. From 2019 through 2022, the project lodged 903 successful tax appeals, saving homeowners an average of $872 a year each on their taxes—-or more than $8 million over the next decade. With results like those, you'd expect that clients would be lining up to ask for help. That isn't the case, Planthaber says. Some homeowners aren't aware of the program, while others are suspicious. Older adults worry that they might have to add any real estate savings to their income tax return , while those who might have a newly granted status as an immigrant, or a status that remains in limbo, fear that filing a petition in court could subject them to immigration proceedings.