Mobile Home Owner News – November 2021
Resident curated mobile home owners news and information for residents of California Mobile Home Parks managed by Sierra Corporate Management (SCM) and owned by a Kort & Scott Financial Group (KSFG) company. The MHPHOA also provides news coverage for California Mobile Home Parks not owned by KSFG.
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Wed, Nov 18, 2021 – A deadly fire at the Trails End Mobile Home Park in April spurred Fresno government leaders into taking over code enforcement responsibilities at all mobile home parks in the city. Here’s a timeline of the Trails End Mobile Home Park case and what will happen next:
Tue, Nov 17, 2021 – After being neglected for years, the Trails End Mobile Home Park, the site of a deadly fire in April and June, is now in the hands of a court-appointed receiver.
The California Receivership Group – based in Santa Monica – was appointed by the Fresno County Superior Court on Nov. 10 to “abate the dangerous substandard and nuisance conditions” at the mobile home park, located on Sierra Avenue off of Blackstone Avenue.
Our goal, under the judge’s order of appointing us, is to make this place safe and habitable for the people who live here, said Mark Adams, president and CEO of the receivership group, during an inspection of the mobile home park on Tuesday. The purpose of today is just to get a sense of what’s going on.
Thu, Sep 9, 2021 – Just this year, two fires at the park located near Blackstone and Sierra, have injured a handful of people, killed one man, and destroyed five trailers.
The city plans to file a petition in the next couple of weeks with the Fresno County Superior Court to get a receiver, which is essentially a third party would be in charge of making sure the park gets cleaned up and to code.
At the end of April, 56-year-old Ronald Richardson died at Trails End. While covering the fire, our station uncovered a suspension of the park’s operating permit due to health and safety violations dating all the way back to July of 2020.
Tue, Nov 9, 2021 – In recent months, CPR News has tracked the progress of residents in two communities as they’ve tried to beat national investors and take control of their own communities, highlighting both successes and shortcomings.
The hundreds of residents of Hickory Village learned about the sale through paper notices posted on their doors. The white slips warned that the park was soon to be sold for more than $20 million. It was only the latest community to hit the auction block.
Within weeks, a regional housing nonprofit, Thistle, had organized a community meeting. Soon, skepticism and confusion became enthusiasm. Fulbright recalled seeing a crowd of 200, with more than 90% raising their hands to support the idea of forming a cooperative and attempting to buy the park themselves.
Thu, Nov 4, 2021 – Sunnyvale’s nearly 11,000 mobile homeowners have 60 days as of Nov.1 to stabilize rents for their lots. But communicating how mobile home residents can secure these protections within a short timeframe will be a challenge.
Sunnyvale City Council unanimously approved the terms of the memorandum of understanding on July 13. The MOU is a 20-year-long contract between the city and mobile homeowners that regulates certain financial aspects of living in a mobile home.
The memorandum applies to all mobile home residents in Sunnyvale who own their homes, but for the terms of the contract to be applied to them, mobile homeowners must sign a lease addendum by Dec. 31. This makes it all the more crucial to inform the community about the MOU terms.
Under the contract’s terms, park owners can increase current resident space rent by either 75% of the consumer price index or 3% – whichever is greater in a given year. It also creates a three-tier system for increasing space rent on turnover of a home: In the first year of the MOU, park owners can increase space rent up to 5% upon sale to a new person. In the second year, they can increase it up to 10%, and every year thereafter, park owners can increase it up to 15%.
RE: Star Management, Pacific Current Partners, John Saunders
Wed, Nov 3, 2021 – A new state law that offers protections against big rent hikes to residents of a single mobile home park in Orange County will take effect on January 1, 2022.
The law was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July after residents of the Rancho La Paz park, mostly seniors who are reliant on Social Security pensions, faced dramatic rent increases because of the park’s unique location – it straddles two cities, Anaheim and Fullerton.
In 2015, rents were $650 on the park’s Anaheim side and $750 on the Fullerton side. Rents have risen steadily since then, and in 2019 a new park owner, Saunders Property Company, which bought the park for $85 million, notified residents of another $200 monthly hike. Now some residents pay as much as $1,575, Ramirez told the Orange County Register.
Rancho La Paz’s location straddling two different municipalities made securing rent control measures difficult. That prompted Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat, to introduce a bill that applies protections to mobile home parks that are specifically located in two different cities. Rancho La Paz is the only mobile home park in the state that fits that criteria.