California MHP News

Wed, Mar 16, 2022 – The owner of a southern California mobile home park is challenging a new California law that limits its ability to raise rents. A law that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2022, keeps Anaheim Mobile Estates from raising gross rental rates for mobile home spaces more than 3% plus the percentage change in the cost of living over a 12-month period. It caps any raise at 5%.

This restriction applies to mobile home parks that are located within two or more cities. AME’s property is located in Anaheim and Stanton.

AME complains it is not allowed to apply for a rent increase above what is laid out in the law. It is represented by Chris Chapman of Rudderow Law Group, and the lawsuit names California Attorney General Rob Bonta as defendant.

Anaheim Mobile Estates

• Address: 3050 West Ball Road, Anaheim, California 92804
• County: Orange
• Phone: 714-828-6920
• Spaces: 229
• Type: All Ages
• Management: California Mobile Home Park Management Co, Matthew J. Walker
• DBA: Anaheim Mobile Estates LLC, Brian M. Dougher, Jaculin Dougher

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.

Tue, Mar 8, 2022 – Seniors living in Huntington Beach mobile homes say they're worried about losing their homes, since corporations bought the complexes and started raising rents.

Tue, Mar 1, 2022 – Running a campaign for mobile home park rent protections from her Huntington Beach living room was not on Carol Rohr’s retirement bucket list. Travel and kayak excursions are more this 65-year-old’s speed.

But Rohr now spends up to 12 hours a day working to get rent stabilization for mobile home parks on the city’s November ballot – reading city handbooks, canvassing the neighborhood, and meeting with City Council members. She’s become the president of the homeowners association at Skandia Mobile Country Club where she lives.

It all started in August 2021 when corporate real estate owner Investment Property Group bought the family-owned Skandia mobile home park. Soon IPG announced rents would increase $225 over the next three years to cover a more than tenfold increase in property taxes when the land was transferred to them.

IPG plans to raise rents by $75 for the next three years, which means monthly fees for Rohr will total $1,590, an 18% increase. Meanwhile, new tenant rents are increasing by 50% this year to $2,195 a month.

Tue, Feb 22, 2022 – The Skandia Senior Mobile Home Park – a 167 unit park – fell under new ownership last August after it was acquired from the Coulter Family Trust for $58 million.

According to public records from the Orange County Clerk Recorder’s office, SKANDIA MHC, LP managed by Michael Scott and Lee Kort, as well as SKANDIA BLF, LLC, managed by Brian Fitterer, now own the mobile home park property.

They are both located at the same address in Irvine as the Investment Property Group (IPG), which manages the park.

The group then informed residents that rent would be going up by $75 annually for the next three years after the park was bought.

The property taxes were reassessed in the amount of $290 per site, per month. The rent increase to $75 does not nearly cover the increase in property taxes of the community but we kept the increase low in order to ensure every resident can stay in their home, she said.

She said the group is not only raising rents for current residents in the park but that the space rent for people who decide to move to Skandia is shooting up by $750 causing the value of the homes in the park to plummet by $75,000 or more.

Thu, Feb 3, 2022 – Lynn Plumb has lived in the Skandia Mobile Country Club in Huntington Beach since the late 1980s. The 86-year-old has a cozy mobile home which she maintains on her fixed Social Security income and what she calls her “measly” savings.

She doesn’t want to leave. Where would she go? Plumb had two sons who have already passed away. She could live in the basement of her daughter’s home in Buffalo, N.Y., but she’d certainly rather stay in Surf City.

I can’t even picture leaving here, Plumb said. All of the people here are like family to me.

Plumb and many Skandia residents, though, say they’ve been unfairly pinched for the last several months, since Investment Property Group bought the 167-unit senior property from the Coulter Family Trust last August.

IPG raised their space rents $75 a month each year for the next three years, larger rent hikes than they’ve previously seen. The company, which owns about 100 mobile home parks nationwide, has offered the residents long-term leases to sign, but many don’t feel like that’s in their best interests, either.

Additionally, Skandia Home Owners Assn. president Carol Rohr said property values have plummeted since IPG raised the space rent for new home buyers from $1,445 to $2,195 per month.