Over the past year, two lawsuits in Colorado sought to clarify the difference between mobile home parks and seasonal RV campgrounds that cater to out-of-state tourists.

The difference involves more than semantics: If a park falls under the state’s Mobile Home Park Act, owners are obligated to fulfill a litany of additional regulations, from tree and snow removal to rent-increase restrictions. RV parks have far fewer rules.

But as park owners and residents seek a better understanding of where their communities may fall, even judges can’t seem to agree.

In October, a La Plata County judge sided with the state’s interpretation of the law, ruling even seasonal parks with five or more mobile homes that are closed during the winter can be considered mobile home parks.

This month, however, a Denver District Court judge issued a completely different ruling in a similar case. Judge Sarah B. Wallace, in a case pitting a Grand Lake park against the state’s Department of Local Affairs, said the state had overstepped its authority in ruling the park fell under the Mobile Home Park Act.

She ordered the state’s determination be reversed.

The question now becomes whether these rulings have any precedential power or implication on other parks throughout Colorado. The Mobile Home Park Oversight Program, which regulates the state’s more than 700 mobile home parks, declined to comment on the rulings or how the department would enforce the issue moving forward.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Dan Engstrom, one of the owners of T Lazy W Park in Grand County who sued the state in March. ‘We got the outcome we wanted but we shouldn’t have to expend the time and resources to get to this point.”

In August 2022, three mobile home owners at the Junction West Vallecito Resort outside Durango sued their landlords, arguing they had not complied with the Mobile Home Park Act. The residents said the owners attempted to change the use of the park without notice, increased rent without announcement and prohibited occupants from advertising or selling their mobile homes.

The Colorado legislature in recent years has beefed up protections for mobile home residents in the face of skyrocketing rent and housing prices. These changes included limiting the number of times owners could raise rent and gave mobile home owners the right to purchase the land beneath their homes if the park went up for sale.

Junction West’s owners, CC5 Vallecito, argued the park shouldn’t be considered a mobile home park because it’s only open during the summer and fall months.

The state was not a party to the La Plata County case but made its position clear in a brief to the court. State law, the Department of Local Affairs’ attorney wrote, did not care whether people continuously occupied a mobile home during all months of the year. A mobile home park would be considered occupied if the home stays in place year-round, regardless of whether the owner physically inhabited the home during the winter.

Judge Suzanne Fairchild Carlson, in an Oct. 6 ruling, agreed.

“Given the purpose of the act is to protect mobile homeowners from eviction with short notice to prevent them from losing their housing and equity, it makes sense that the act would apply to this property if it has at least five mobile homes,” Carlson wrote.

So, issue settled, right? Not so fast.

Engstrom and his ownership group had sued the state earlier in the year after regulators determined the Grand County park fit the definition of a mobile home park.

The owners made similar points to their counterparts in Durango. Several people who owned trailers in T Lazy W didn’t even live in Colorado full-time. The park has no running water or sewage in the winter. The Colorado legislature, their attorney argued, didn’t enact these new laws for mobile home parks to protect second-home owners.

Wallace, in a Dec. 13 ruling, concurred, writing that the term “occupied” as used in the law “requires some form of physical presence in the mobile homes.”

“Clearly then, by promulgating the act, the Colorado legislature concerned itself with protecting low-income individuals residing in mobile homes,” Wallace wrote. “It was not concerned with regulating the type of seasonal, recreational residences at issue here.”

What’s not clear now is how these rulings might impact other parks with mobile homes.

Colin E. Moriarty, an attorney who represented the T Lazy W owners, said he didn’t believe the rulings would have sweeping precedent across the industry because the judges didn’t strike down the entire regulation. His case is now closed but the La Plata County case remains open.

David Valleau, a housing attorney at Colorado Poverty Law Project, said the rulings would likely have more impact on a county level as opposed to statewide. But if the state appeals the T Lazy W decision, a court of appeals ruling could make it “the law of the land.”

“Everyone — the government, the parks — want clarity,” he said. “It’s a pretty fundamental question.”

Engstrom said he hoped the decision would help smaller parks without the resources needed to battle the state in court.

“I hope they take this ruling and go back and write a regulation to protect those who actually need protecting,” Moriarty said. “Stop picking on the campgrounds.”

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