This is a situation unlike any we’ve encountered in 45+ years in the mobile home park business.
A tenant sold her home. (We only rent the lots. We don’t own any homes.) The new owners moved into our park without speaking to us and without applying for the lot rental.
They have been living in our park for one month and have never paid lot rent. They have not offered to pay rent. They haven’t even asked us what the lot rent amount is. What must they be thinking?
The night they moved in the neighbors called the police to their home. They were drinking, causing noise, and were passed out drunk with a child on the porch at 2 AM.
One neighbor said she saw them having a “spitting contest†to see who could spit the farthest and hit the home next door.
I went to the county attorney’s office and the sheriff served them with papers the next day.
However, the underpinning is still up on the home and they show no signs of moving. We would like to cut the utilities (power and water) to the home. Our attorney says we probably have the right to do that, but it would be safer to go to court and get a forcible detainer. We are in the process of doing that, but it is delaying getting them out of our park.
Don’t even think about cutting the utilities off without the expressed consent of your attorney. If you do that, here’s the likely scenario: they will try to light up the house with candles while drunk, burn it to the ground with the kid in it, and then sue you for $1 billion. These people are stupid and crazy, and that’s a bad combination for a lawsuit. Follow the attorney’s advice and get them out the legal way with an eviction. They’ll be gone in 30 to 60 days, and the crisis will be over. Don’t escalate it.
I had a tenant who owned their home sell it to the new buyers before an application was reviewed. The Park Denied the application, but they still went ahead with the sale and moved in despite the denied application. They say we have discriminated against them and will live there regardless.
I am planning on talking to the Attorney on Monday to begin the process. Any faster route?
No. Don’t escalate. Get an attorney and evict. Just provide to your attorney your non-discriminatory grounds for denying their application, and let him/her take it from there.
Contrary to the system you operate under in a case such as yours where we have not approved the assignment of the lot and the individuals have not signed a lease I would serve them with a no trespass notice. As they are not tenants they have no right to access the property simply because they own a home there. No lease, no trespass. You are not preventing them from owning the home simply from becoming tenants.
If you go this route in the event they re enter (of course they will) you call the police and go through the process. If the police don’t enforce the no trespass so what at least you tried but if they do then the homeowners fight is then with the police.
Owning a home does not guarantee access to the property. As an example a tenant could be evicted, served with a no trespass notice and opt to rent out the home, with park approval, as opposed to selling it.
I have some continued questions from an earlier post.
We have filed for the eviction with the trespassers. They have filed an answer back with the court and claimed they never owned the home and have vacated.
The trespassers have vacated, but the whole time they were there they said they owned the home, the former owner said they owned the home, but now the trespassers say they do not own the trailer and the former owner does.
Do you go through trial just to get the eviction on these people (of course the attorney recommends to go to trial) or try to purchase the home from the former owner?
I’d go through with court. What probably happened was that the tenants were trying to buy the home from the previous owner (probably a low-down RTO), but the deal fell through. If I were you, I’d press the previous owner (or, I guess he is still the owner), to only sell the home to people who have been approved by you. Of course, you can not unreasonably withhold approval; you should apply the same standards to his tenants as to all the tenants who come to live with you. By being firm with the owner, you may encourage him to sell you the home on favorable terms and then you can make sure it goes into the hands of a qualified family.