In Western Australia, a residential park is a place that provides land ‘sites’ for rent, usually for a relocatable home, such as a caravan or park home.  The tenant can either rent or purchase a home on the site.

There are two main types of residential parks:

1. Mixed-use parks cater for both long-stay tenants and people staying for a short time. Long-stay tenants at mixed-use parks may have to share facilities with holiday makers, employees of the park, or seasonal workers.
2. Long-stay only parks contain only long-stay sites and provide residential accommodation to only long-stay tenants. These types of parks are sometimes referred to as lifestyle villages.

Sometimes, retirement villages are also called lifestyle villages. If this is the case, they will be covered by the Retirement Villages Act 1992, and not by residential park laws.

This guide explains and simplifies the law and should not be taken as a statement of law, for which you should refer to the Residential Parks (Long stay Tenants) Act 2006 (WA) (Parks Act) and the Residential Parks (Long-stay Tenants) Regulations 2007 (WA) (Regulations). You can view a copy online at Western Australian Legislation to the laws regulating long-term living in park homes, lifestyle villages and caravan parks in Western Australia.

Park living guide contents:

• Is a residential park right for you? 
  • Useful contacts
• Introduction
  • What is a residential park?
  • Types of long-stay agreements
  • Residential park living is unique
• 1. Before entering an agreement
  • Things to check
  • Voluntary sharing arrangement (exit fees)
  • Property condition report
  • Timeframe for giving documents
  • Cooling-off period – site-only agreements
  • Purchasing a home
• 2. The long-stay agreement
  • Standard terms
  • Particulars for your agreement
  • Non-standard terms.
  • Standard forms
  • Keeping the paperwork
• 3. Costs of living in a residential park
  • Security bonds
  • Rent
  • Receipts and records of rent
  • Varying rent
  • Disclosure about rent variation
  • Other permitted costs
  • Utilities (electricity, gas, water etc.)
  • Voluntary sharing arrangements (exit fees)
  • Fees on the sale of a home
• 4. Living in a park
  • Your rights
  • Who is responsible for cleanliness, repair and maintenance?
  • Alterations or additions to a park home or site
  • Park operator’s right of entry
  • Relocation
  • Major changes to your tenancy 
  • Park rules
  • Changing park rules
  • Park liaison committee
• 5. Selling a park home.
  • Sale process
  • Appointing a selling agent
  • Assignment
  • What happens if it takes a long time to sell the home?
• 6. When things go wrong: disputes and resolution
  • Types of disputes
  • Park Liaison Committee
  • State Administrative Tribunal (SAT)
• 7. Ending a tenancy
  • Tenant wants to end the tenancy
  • Park operator wants to end the tenancy
  • Notice of intention at end of tenancy
  • Evictions
  • Site-only agreement - fixed term
  • On-site home agreement - fixed term
• 8. Tenants affected by family and domestic violence
  • What is family and domestic violence?
  • When you want or need to break an on-site tenancy agreement due to FDV
  • If there are co-tenants on the tenancy agreement
  • If you want to stay and remove the perpetrator from the agreement
  • Dealing with debt and liability
  • Making security upgrades without permission
• 9. All about notices.
  • Forms you may issue 
  • Forms the park operator may issue
  • How to serve a notice
  • Counting days
• 10. Death of a tenant
  • On-site agreement
  • Site-only agreement 
• 11. Advice about bonds
• 12. Abandoned homes and/or goods
  • Perishable or low cost goods
  • Tenant’s documents
  • Park home