Pa. attorney general sues owner of Robinson mobile home park
The state attorney general’s office has filed a civil lawsuit against a Robinson mobile home park owner it alleges “engaged in unlawful and deceptive business practices” by forcing out residents without compensation due them under the law to assist them in relocating.
“This is a clear case of a property owner failing to meet his legal obligations and denying residents payments to which they are entitled,” Attorney General Kathleen Kane said in a statement Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges park owner Bill Chen notified residents the park would be closing but failed to tell them he is required under a 2012 state law to pay several thousand dollars to each resident to assist them in relocating their homes. The law also requires he
pay residents who are not able to relocate their trailers at least $2,500 or the appraised value of their homes, whichever is greater.
“Many residents vacated from the park after receiving these notices and were unaware of their rights,” according to a statement from Ms. Kane’s office.
Residents and former residents interviewed by the Post-Gazette this month said they had not received any compensation from the park’s owner, and in some cases, could not afford to leave and move their trailers to another mobile home park. They also said they had endured periods of utility shut-offs, ongoing demolition of other trailers around them and break-ins to their trailers.
Ken “Skip” Benish, one of the few residents who is still living in the park, said Wednesday he hopes the court action will resolve the situation, giving him the $6,000 he estimates he will need to relocate to another mobile home park.
“It’s been a long fight,” he said.
Stacey Stumpf, a resident of the mobile home park on Steubenville Pike for 17 years, said this month that most of the residents were single parents, disabled or on fixed incomes.
“It’s sad. We were ripped out of our homes, pretty much,” Melissa Dyer, another longtime resident, told the Post-Gazette this month.
Despite having not compensated residents, Mr. Chen “initiated the demolition of a significant number of homes at the Park Property, including multiple homes where the title was not signed over by the home’s owner,” stated the lawsuit, filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
The lawsuit seeks to have the defendant pay residents who are seeking to relocate “an amount equivalent to the cost of relocation,” as well as pay residents “any moneys which may have been acquired by means of violation of the Manufactured Home Community Rights Act and the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law,” as well as penalties of $1,000 for each violation of those laws and and $3,000 for every violation involving a victim age 60 or older.”
The Manufactured Home Community Rights Act was signed into law by former Gov. Tom Corbett. It states that if a mobile home park is being closed and the land redeveloped, residents are due $4,000 for a single-section trailer or $6,000 for a multi-section trailer to assist in moving it. If a resident chooses not to or is not able to move the mobile home, they are due either $2,500 or the home’s appraised value.
This lawsuit represents only the second such suit filed in Pennsylvania to enforce the rights of mobile home park residents under the relatively recently enacted law, said Eileen Yacknin, litigation director at Neighborhood Legal Services Association, who represented one of the park’s residents.
“I am pleased and grateful that the office of the Attorney General took this important action to protect the rights of these mobile home park residents who, through no fault of their own, have been involuntarily displaced from the residential properties they owned and in which they resided and expected to continue to reside,” Ms. Yacknin said.
The attorney general’s office encouraged other former residents to contact the office’s Bureau of Consumer Protection at 1-800-441- 2555 or consumers@attorneygeneral.gov.
Gary Kalmeyer, an attorney for the park’s owner, could not be reached Wednesday.