Mobile home park sale may be near

Copper Sands has reached a deal but is still locked in dispute with creditors

The owner of Copper Sands mobile home park has accepted an offer to purchase the mobile home park near White City, but she’s still sparring with creditors who have their own ideas about how a sale should proceed.

The purchase price is confidential, but the rest of the offer cropped up in a trove of documents posted as part of a creditor dispute that’s dragged on for roughly a year. The offer is signed by the park’s owner, Jaimey Midtdal of B.C. A court application described it as a “binding legal contract to sell the Mobile Home Park.”

The park is home to about 240 people. Midtdal has previously stated that they are not at risk, but the news is leaving some uncertain about the future. Jessica Tiefenbach, who runs a hair salon in the park, was feeling hopeful when she heard about the possible sale.

But she said all will depend on the prospective buyer. She said she’s left wondering “if they want to come in and maintain the park or if they want to come in and destroy the park — which way is it going to go?”

Last November, Midtdal informed a court that her companies had become insolvent and were unable to make payments on about $10.7 million in debt to three lenders.

A judge granted her creditor protection in December. That blocked foreclosure on the park and related assets, which include a long-delayed utility facility that would use 100,000 waste-absorbing willows to recycle water.

Saskatoon Justice Neil Gabrielson repeatedly gave her more time to forge a plan to restructure her businesses, track down financing and repay her debts. She managed to sell some land and repay more than $4 million. But millions more remained outstanding, and in September Gabrielson ordered Midtdal and her lenders to agree to terms of sale for a list of assets related to the park.

On Sept. 25, she signed a purchase agreement with an unknown buyer to sell Copper Sands Lands Corp., as well as the plot of land hosting the mobile home park.

The closing and possession date is set for Nov. 15, though it’s subject to numerous conditions including financing for the buyer and an order from the court.

But the legal wrangling over Copper Sands is hardly at an end. Two lenders have objected to the sales process favoured by Midtdal. She countered that the process proposed by Industrial Properties of Regina Limited (IPRL) and IPR Capital Limited seems “designed” to allow them to take over the park themselves.

She has previously accused lenders of pursuing a “loan-to-own” scheme.

IPRL’S lawyer, Diana Lee, said her client definitely has a “different take” on that matter. She declined to comment further. The parties were set to come back to court on Tuesday, but Gabrielson merely extended Midtdal’s creditor protection for another week.

Whatever happens in the end, Tiefenbach is hoping it will lead to improvements for Copper Sands. She called the current state of the park “very poor,” especially given rent increases in recent years.

She said the water sometimes goes off for a day at a time, interfering with her salon business. And that’s hardly the only thing she’s hoping to see change if new owners take over the park.

“I would hope that they would fix the roads out here in our area,” she said.

The documents released this week also revealed that Midtdal hasn’t kept up with tax arrears owed to the Rural Municipality of Edenwold. A judge ordered her to pay $5,000 per month starting in July — but her credit monitor revealed that she has made no such payments.

Midtdal has feuded with the RM over plans to expand the park, which have been blocked by officials and a provincial appeal board. Court documents reveal that she’s now suing an engineer who was responsible for drafting the plans.

She alleges he is at fault for “significant errors” that led to the expansion being rejected. In her view, that wasted two years of valuable development time.

She also accuses the engineer of being in a conflict of interest, suggesting that his alleged relationship with a water supplier led him to push a water and waste water system that wasn’t appropriate for Saskatchewan winters.

Midtdal has blamed delays over the park expansion for some of her financial travails.

None of the allegations against the engineer have been proven in court.