Is This Even Legal?
I bought a mobile home here in NC and the lot owner is from hell. I bought it from a lady who bought it from another person who passed away. Now before he passed away , he owed 6 months of back lot rent. The lot owner says before anybody can occupy the mobile home, the back lot rent must be paid or he will evict the home from the park. Also he says whoever occupies the home, he would want them to put vinyl siding on the home 3 months in. Would these statements hold up in court if it ever reached that level and can he legally force me to pay some other persons back rent who owned the home a while ago?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
did a lein of some sort get attached to the land?
read what the lease says.
Is there any concept of title insure w/ mobiles?
How could a lein get attached to the land?? I dont own the land, thats what I pay lot rent for.
Well the answer will depend on state law so you probably need a local attorney to render an opinion on this matter. But my guess is that the answer is yes, he can do that.
There are really two issues here, of course, the back land rent and the re-siding.
Relative to the land rent generally the Law is in favor of people getting paid so my guess is that the obligation attaches to the vehicle and must be paid before the trailer can be rented or moved.
There is the bad news
However, if we assume that the obligation attaches to the vehicle then it should probably have been taken care of by the woman you bought the trailer from since she had the obligation to provide clear title. You may have a claim against her for fraudulent conveyance or something like that.
There is the good news.
However, looking at the matter a different way perhaps we should ask practical questions rather than legal ones, How much money is the delinquent land rent? If you simply paid it how much deleterious effect would it have on your transaction? If this gets into a pissing contest in court how much is it going to cost to sue and be sued as compared to the value of the claim? If the back rent is a large amount you might want to reconsider the wisdom of walking away, writing off what you have in it so far and learn a valuable lesson about checking for underlying obligations before you purchase investment property.
Another issue is whether the lot owner may not have other interests here. He may have believed that he would end up with title because of this large unpaid claim and finds your presence annoying. It seems to me that I recall the acquisition of vehicles in such circumstances as one of the reasons you want to own trailer parks. In that case you may be able to negotiate your way out of this by apologizing for depriving him of the windfall and attempting to settle the old obligation for some smaller amount.
As to the issue of whether he can make you put siding on the trailer the answer is again, probably yes. The lot lease probably includes language that the vehicle must meet certain standards of maintenance or appearance so that the landlord can protect himself from dangerous or ugly units which would adversely affect the value of the total property. Whether this particular trailer is sufficiently in need of siding I have no way of knowing with the data available at this time. It is possible that Mr. Lot Owner is persecuting you for stealing a windfall he had already counted upon. Its also possible that the thing really needs siding.
Either way you might want to consider moving the trailer to another park. After all if the park owner is as obnoxious as you say why would you want to consider continuing a business relationship with him. Vote with your feet, take you dollars elsewhere.
Ok I am going to pay the back rent, its about 1000 dollars, but what about the siding?? I never signed anything that said the home needs to be sided, it was strictly verbal.
Thats fine but how can he be fair and consistent when there are other homes in the park that are not sided either? Would it be legal to just evict my home and not the others in the park that werent sided?
What do you plan to do with the MH?
Buy/sell? Buy/Rent? Live in it?
[addsig]
Buy/Sell was the end that we have in mind.
Thanks John for the advice. I really appreciate you taking to time to post an explaination as to why and what to do. You be blessed.