Long-Term Campground Residents: The Lease vs. License Line Most Parks Cross Without Knowing

A camper who showed up in March on a weekly rate has stayed through April, May, and into June. They are paying monthly now. The park manager mentions in passing that policy says no long-term stays past July. The camper says, "We'll see." That conversation is the moment most parks find out they have crossed into landlord territory without anyone signing a document that says so. The line between a guest and a tenant is one of the most expensive legal questions in independent park operations. Most parks are on the wrong side of it and do not know it until they need to ask someone to leave.

The line is drawn by state law, not by your sign

Park owners read forums where someone says the magic number is 28 days, or 30, or 31. The forums are not wrong, exactly. They are oversimplified. Each state writes the line a little differently. Some states use days of continuous occupancy. Some use billing cadence (monthly rate equals tenancy). Some look at whether the camper has another permanent residence. A few look at whether the RV is on blocks instead of wheels. Your state's specific test is what matters. Your park policy does not override it.

What matters operationally is this. The moment a long-term camper meets your state's test for tenancy, the rules change. The notice you owe before removal changes. The process changes. The list of things you cannot do (like cut the power, change the locks, or tow the RV) gets longer. A short-stay guest can be removed under a trespass warning enforced by local police. A tenant has to be evicted through formal court process, which takes weeks and sometimes months.

The agreement is what holds the line

You cannot avoid your state's tenancy rules by writing a contract that says they do not apply. Courts will ignore that. What you can do is structure the actual arrangement so the camper does not meet the tenancy test in the first place. The agreement is where that structure lives.

Three structural choices in the agreement matter most. First, billing cadence. Weekly billing reads as a license much more clearly than monthly billing. Second, duration. A fixed end date with re-application required after that date reads very differently than open-ended monthly renewal. Third, occupancy pattern. A camper whose permanent address is in another state, who comes for three months, and who leaves on the agreed date is a seasonal license arrangement. A camper whose permanent address is the park, who has no other residence, and who renews indefinitely is functionally a tenant regardless of what the paperwork says.

The two documents I see parks confuse

Field note: The single most useful clause in a long-term resident agreement is the one that requires the RV to remain road-worthy and movable on 48 hours' notice. Sounds bureaucratic. In practice it does two things. It signals to the state that the relationship is closer to license than tenancy (the unit is mobile, the camper is not putting down permanent roots). And it makes the moving day at the end of the agreement much easier than negotiating with a unit on blocks with no axles.

What the agreement needs to actually cover

Resident info, including a permanent address away from the park if one exists. The unit on site: year, make, model, VIN, plate, and proof of insurance. The big check box up front identifying whether the parties intend the arrangement as a license or a tenancy, with a written acknowledgment that the state's classification governs regardless. Start date, end date, monthly rate, payment cadence, late fees, what utilities are included, what is metered separately. Site rules covering improvements, additional vehicles, subletting, short-term-rental use of the unit. Termination procedure for each case (license vs. tenancy). Removal of the RV at the end, with timelines and abandoned-property procedure if the camper does not move it.

That sounds like a lot. The whole document fits on two pages and takes about 20 minutes to walk through with a long-term resident at check-in. The 20 minutes is what saves you from a months-long eviction proceeding two years later.

What never to do with a long-term camper, even when you are right

Lock the gate behind their RV. Cut the power to the site. Shut off the water. Have the unit towed without legal process. Throw their belongings on the curb. All of these are self-help removal. All of them are illegal in most states even when the camper is wildly in the wrong. Every park owner I know who tried any of them lost a case they would have otherwise won. The trespass warning and the eviction process exist for a reason. They are slower than you want and they are the only paths that hold.

Free template: long-term resident agreement (PDF)

The PDF below is the two-page editable agreement. Resident and unit info. The license-or-tenancy decision box up front with explanatory language. Term, rent, and utility section. Site rules. Termination procedure for both cases. Removal-of-unit terms. Signature blocks. View inline, download, and have a licensed attorney in your state review and customize before using it with a real resident.

Legal disclaimer

Tenancy law varies enormously by state and sometimes by county. The line between a license and a tenancy is the single most heavily-state-specific question in this article. The template is a starting point only. A licensed attorney in your jurisdiction must review and adapt it before you use it with any long-term camper. Mobile-home tenancy statutes (which sometimes apply to RV parks even when the units are wheeled) add another layer of state-specific rules. Do not skip the attorney step on this one.

About the author

Sean Hakes is the founder of Campground Management. He has spent the last decade watching independent parks try to remove long-term residents and learning which agreements held and which did not. Send him a note if you want a hand adapting the agreement for your state.