TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — At least 30 Tallahassee mobile home owners have sought legal assistance after hundreds of dollars in lot rent hikes from new landlords at Lake Bradford Mobile Home Park.
"We can't start over," homeowner Catheryn Smith said through tears, as she and neighbors at Lake Bradford Mobile Home Park are having to consider major life changes due to the increase. "I moved here in 1994, which is almost 30 years," she said.
New owners took over the park in Aprill of last year and, Smith says, began sending notices about the increasing rent. "Every time you get a notice , it's threatening eviction as the end result," said Smith. "I'd go ahead along with it because I feel like couldn't do anything about it."
But what she did do, is turn to Legal Services of North Florida. Staff Attorney Mary Rose Whitehouse crunched the numbers as she took on the case and said, "In effect we're seeing folks rent go from $330 to $750 which is something that we're trying to stop." She and Smith both point out that little has been done to justify such an spike in monthly expense. "You know this park is in is not the greatest shape," said Whitehouse. "The roads in some places are only partially paved."
"When we moved out here," Smith recalled, "we had a gym, we had a sauna, we had a pool, we had a playground, we had a laundromat, we had a basketball court, we had family-oriented things. Now we have nothing."
And it's not as simple as just moving the mobile home. "A lot of mobile homes are so old, if they were manufactured before 1976 they're for the most part immovable," Whitehouse explained, adding that it could cost upwards of $10,000 dollars to relocate.
"I mean if we could afford $700, we probably would have had nicer places than what we have," Smith says. "We would have gone into communities that were had something to offer."
Smith helped gather the neighbors' signatures needed to start a lengthy legal battle that could land Lake Bradford Mobile Home Park in a lawsuit, but Whitehouse says, what will happen to the homeowners in the meantime is uncertain.
"We are hopeful that we won't see a large onslaught of evictions. It really just depends on the mobile Home Park," Whitehouse said. "Unfortunately, the Mobile Home Act is a bit silent on whether or not the park can enforce the proposed increase when the increase is in dispute."
Smith says, it's a battle worth fighting for. "They should have to answer to somebody. They should treat these people with more respect, more dignity, more concern, more compassion."
We did reach out to Lake Bradford Mobile Homes, but they have yet to return our call. Should they provide any future statements, we'll provide them here.
Legal Services of North Florida also worked with people who lived in the Meadows, where ABC27 reported on similar circumstances in January of Last year.
Whitehouse was also the attorney in their case, which settled out of court to place rent at $545 after landlords tried to raise it to $895.
