Mobile Homeowners Unite

I was living in PA during Covid in January of 21 and decided it might be a good time to move south. We started looking at homes from North Carolina down to Florida and we didn’t find anything we wouldn’t go into debt buying so we started looking at Mobil Homes. We went on Zillow and kept seeing all these homes in MHvillage mobil home parks and so we went to the MHvillage website and thats when it all started

We put in our budget and desired location along with a few other filters and up pops a few dozen homes. We start going through the list one by one and we narrowed it down to a few and Down Yonder was one of them. The description of the park was well lets use the word inviting.

The price was right, the location was right so we took the next step and contacted the realtor. The realtor told us the lot rent was 688 and was only in the second year of the LTA and he told us that it was a 5 star 55+ mobil home park so I said whats the next step. He said I had to contact the Down Yonder office and they would vet me. The ladies name was Fran, she sent me a application through email and said I had to return by regular mail with a check for 100 dollars. While waiting for response I emailed her several times to verify that what the realtor told me was correct and she said yes on everything. So a week or two later we got approval and so now its a big decision.

I bought the home , packed up in PA and headed to Florida for my retirement years. I arrive April 29 2021 and go to the office to sign my paperwork. I meet Fran and she pulls my folder out. She starts off with the lease agreement which says my rent is 688 but then shows me a line on the page that says on January 1,2022 my rent would go up 98.00 a month and I said why. I was told that my rent would be 688 for another year

and a half. I asked to speak with the manager but he wasn’t there because he only works at our park 2 days a week , so I let it go and continued with the process. Next she puts this document in front of me that says I agree to maintain the trees on the property that Im about to rent so I refuse and then told that if I didnt sign that I wouldn’t be accepted in the park but I already bought my home and so now Im kinda stuck which is exactly why they get away with this.

All that aside as a building contractor for 30 tears I started finding many issues in this MHvillage owned mobil home park and thats when my journey started. I started researching the company and then complaints and wow. My park is not 55+, and at this time last year there were teens and children living in the park. The property is not well taken care of, the clubhouse which is a common area and is also available to rent for private parties is NOT ADA compliant, the tree issue well thats nothing more than Tony Soprano trying to extort money from a guy cutting grass in his neighborhood. There is so much more but this is not what I expected nor do I want to endure but for now Im stuck. Had I known any of this I would have never uprooted my life. Clear violation of anti trust laws