Speak Out For Mobile Homes

If you own a mobile or manufactured home and rent the land within the boundaries of Broward County, your home is at risk. Let your voice be heard all the way down at city hall. Use the feedback link below and we will publish your letter online.

If you wish to submit your story to this site, please feel free to do so. You do not have to be a mobile or manufactured home owner, however, mobile home eviction for change of land use is our main focus at this time. If you feel that your rights have been trampled, you can contact us below. Your name will not be used if you request. Please remember, any comment that uses profane or vulgar language will be ignored!

Re: Palma Nova MHP in Davie Closing 08/28/2008

It's always sad news to read about a mobile home park closing and in this case 940 families losing their homes.

Making matters worse, the Sun-Sentinel allows the worst scum on the earth to post horrible and disgusting messages in the Sun-Sentinel blogs where "good riddance to trailer trash" is among the milder comments.

Every single Sun-Sentinel article about mobile homes are followed by idiotic blog comments that are never addressed in the stories or their follow-ups.

Mobile home ownership covers the full spectrum of society from young families to the retired, from hard working to whose on disability, from those with tidy homes to those who abuse substance and system, exactly like all communities in Florida and across the U.S.A.

Mobile home owners OWN their homes. They are most often purchased from or through the mobile home park owner who also brokers and profits from the chattel mortgage.

The mobile home park owner requires the mobile home owner to improve his property with expensive concrete work, patio, driveway, steps, and often requires a screen or Florida room and carport. These accessories that were once part of a package deal for a couple of grand are now upwards of $25,000.00 in addition to the price of the home which now range from $59,000. to $129,000. and more to add a garage.

In my opinion these expenditures making the park more attractive to other mobile home buyers give the mobile home owner a stake in the park and are in part a reason for the success of the business.

Mobile home park owners such as the Formans in the Palma Nova case have sold mobile homes to people right down to the wire of announcing they are closing. This is fraud!

Palma Nova invited mobile home owners from closing parks due to Wilma to relocate their homes to Plama Nova. Fraud!

Plama Nova allowed fema to sell used fema mobile homes to poor families as their long term housing solution. Fraud!

Now we have 940 Davie families who are about to lose their entire housing investment. This is despicable!

The Davie city council rezoned Palma Nova as part of their Regional Activity Center in Febuary 2008. Demonstrating depraved indifference to the housing needs of their constituents!

The Davie City council and the Palma Nova park owner opined the rezoning would not result in the closing of the park so a finding prior to rezoning was not required under s723.083

Low and behold a few months later after saying the park would remain open for many more years, six month notices of pending eviction go out to all the mobile home owners.

If there were any real justice in Florida, if there were any controlling legal authority in Florida, the rezoning of Palma Nova would be immediately overturned.

What does the law s723.083 mean according to our former Florida Attorney General who is now our Governor Charlie Crist?

No zoning authority may take any action that will result in the closing of a mobile home park without first making a determination there is adequate and suitable facilities, affordable and available to the mobile home owners within the jurisdiction of the zoning authority.

So the scummy lawyahs for greedy developers parse the law. Rezone the park when it won't result in the park closing, then come back and close the park after it is too late to apply the law. Ergo = No pesky s723.083 legal problem mass evicting their victims.

While it is easy to lay blame on the park owner and his cronies at city hall, there is more to go around.

To be fair, the mobile home owners of Palma Nova failed themselves and each other by not joining the F.M.O. the Federation of Manufactured Home Owners of Florda and by not forming a strong Home Owners Association with a proper Legal Fund.

For the total price of less than $50. per year FMO+HOA, these mobile home owners gave up many of their rights and protections under Florida law, including the right to buy their park.

If you live in a Florida Mobile Home Park, you're standing on the deck of a ship watching the Palma Nova go down with out any life boats. Does your park have any life boats for you? Don't be stupid, be proactive. Join the FMO, start an HOA, run for local office, attend the meetings, read the city meeting schedules for mobile home issues. Don't be afraid of these people. Refuse to be a victim!

Legal: While I am not qualified to offer legal advice, I suggest the following.

If you become involved with an attorney over the mobile home park closing, there are a couple of things you need to know.

It is almost impossible to get your case heard before a judge in South Florida.

The brief your attorney files will go to a special magistrate who will find all the legal hogwash developer lawyahs spew and will suggest your case be dismissed without a hearing.

If your case is dismissed all appeals are simply asking higher courts to review the findings of the lower court.

Your attorney must make a complete case from day one as nothing learned afterwards can be included in the appeals.

Make sure your attorney has fully covered his case against the red herrings that will be thrown at it by lawyahs for the city, developer and park owner.

1. Include the Florida Attorney General's opinion on exactly what s723.083 means.

2. Include the Florida Senate Staff report backing up the Attorney General's Opinion

3. Be ready for red herring Florida Attorney General's Opinion AGO 87-31 A city may own a mobile home park and if they do s723.083 applies. Does NOT say s723.083 only applies to cities owning mobile home parks as is frequently stated before city councils and commissions about to rezone a mobile home park.

4. Include a copy of Wieker vs StPete making the case s723.083 must be applied prior to rezoning.

5. Include a copy of Harris v. Martain Regency, Ltd. pointing out the decision was "qualified" that while a park owner can close for change of use without disclosing the reason, it still must be for a new use consistent with current zoning. It follows when the use is not consistent rezoning attaches and s723.083 applies. The judge ruled a park closing can not be used to evade the law.

6. Include an argument s723.061(3) no longer eliminates the need for s723.083 as it did as s723.061(1)(d) when fair market value or the full cost of relocation was paid to mobile home owners in a closing park, because according to the Florida Senate definition of "subsection" s723.061(3) is a subsection and therefore cannot refer to anything outside itself and is therefore encapsulated. Even if Davis v. Florida Power Co., 60 So.759, 765(Fla.1913) says all sections of the must law have meaning, there is nothing to prove or even suggest s723.061(3) must now be applied outside itself when by its very wording says it can only be applied to what's inside its subsection. Failing to make a winning argument in this area can and will cause the entire case for applying s723.083 to fail.

"s723.061(3) The provisions of s.723.083 shall not be applicable to any park where the provisions of this subsection apply."

Clearly whether by mistake or design there are currently no provisions within subsection s723.061(3) as there were when it was paragraph (d) within subsection s723.061(1).

See the second half of Myrna Gallo v. Celebration Pointe Townhomes to see how ignoring this part of the case allows cities, developers and park owner lawyahs to make a bogus case the courts can support.

You have only 90 days from the date of the six month notice of pending eviction to petition for judical remedies. Get to the court on time.

Remember: You can not "fix it" in the appeal. It has to all be in there right from the start or your goose is cooked.

Robert Perkis

Re: Davie Moratorium 04/04/2008

The Davie city commission and city attorney turned down the scheme of the Mobile Home Task Force to require mobile home park owners pay into a fund for the relocation of mobile home owners when a park closes.

It is unfortunate the Mobile Home Task Force was allowed to waste a year in fantasy land developing a plan to grease the path of their own destruction.

We can only hope the wisdom of the Davie city commission extends to taking real world action to protect the housing investment of Davie mobile home owners.

1. Amend the Davie Comprehensive Plan by adding: "It is the intent of the city of Davie to preserve its mobile home parks as affordable housing."

2. Pass an ordinance requiring a super majority 60% vote by the public to rezone a mobile home park.

3. Pass a resolution accepting the Florida Attorney General's opinion s723.083 requires a determination there is adequate and suitable facilities, affordable and available for the relocation of the mobile home owners within the boundaries of the city's zoning authority before a mobile home park may be rezoned.

4. Have the city attorney adopt the opinion Harris vs Martin establishes a mobile home park owner shall not evade the law (s723.061(2) and (s723.083) by evicting the mobile home owners prior to rezoning.

5. Have the city attorney adopt the opinion s723.061(3) is an encapsulated sub-section pertaining to nothing outside itself, which is exactly what it is in plain english.

6. Let city staff know the Davie city commission is not in favor of approving mobile home park redevelopment. Do not allow a culture of eliminating mobile home parks to form.

7. Encourage mobile home owners to form Home Owner's Associations so they will have the option of buying their park when it is offered for sale.

8. Encourage Home Owner's Associations to establish a legal fund.

9. Make sure all mobile home parks are zoned as mobile home parks. If a park is already zoned for what the park will be redeveloped into, then s723.083 does not apply.

10. If a mobile home park must be closed, the city of Davie should use all means possible to encourage the mobile home park owner to voluntarily pay fair market value for the mobile homes whose value obviously exceeds the scrap metal prices required to be paid under Florida statues.

11. If a mobile home park must be closed, the city of Davie should wave all requirements the mobile home be brought up to current codes as a condition of a relocation certificate of occupancy.

12. The city of Davie should consider the purchase by eminent domain for the county appraised taxable valuation of any mobile home park targeted for redevelopment as part of the city's affordable housing plan. Lease the park back to the Home Owner's Association to pay for the property or assist the HOA in obtaining a mortgage to buy the property outright from the city.

Robert Perkis / 04/04/2008

Re: Response from Congressman Robert Wexler 03/07/2008

Mr. Robert Perkis

Dear Mr. Perkis:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding the Manufactured Housing Caucus for members of Congress. I appreciate your views on this important issue.

As you are aware, 1 out of 4 new single-family homes sold each year in the U.S. are manufactured homes. The Congressional Manufactured Housing Caucus was created in 1997 to promote manufactured housing as a solution to our Nation's shortage of affordable housing. In addition, the Caucus works to remove any barriers so that manufactured housing is more readily available to everyone.

I firmly support initiatives that promote the availability of manufactured housing and removing barriers to increase the availability of affordable housing. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind should these issues be raised on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thank you again for taking the time to write. Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions you may have or anytime I may be of assistance to you. If you would like to be updated on these and other issues, please stop by my website (www.wexler.house.gov) and sign up for my electronic newsletter. I hope you will find these tools to be valuable resources in keeping up with events in Washington and South Florida.

With warm regards,

Robert Wexler
Member of Congress

RW:jl

Re: Coconut Creek - Affordable Housing Scheme 02/28/2008

Coconut Creek City Commission Workshop 2008-05.

Coconut Creek has no affordable housing by any reasonable definition and doesn't intend to build any. The plan is to make unaffordable housing affordable by paying down the inflated prices of developer housing remaining on the market.

After the presentation explaining funding sources, the mayor asks how the commissioners can be sure this money goes to the right people?

It turns out the right people are city employees and school board employees who work in Coconut Creek who will be prioritized to the front of the line through a point system.

It is suggested workers of new businesses important to the city tax base that were required to contribute to the fund also be considered after city and school workers.

Possibly motivated by feelings of guilt for participating in the closing and mass eviction of two of the city's mobile home parks a city planner suggests the scheme be extended to displaced mobile home owners. It is quickly determined they can be last if there is any money left over.

The meeting concluded without resolution saying these were ideas for consideration until the scheme comes up again.

Robert Perkis

Re: Mobile Home Owners 02/20/2008

The longer I spend fighting mobile home park closings the more amazed I am at what comes out of people in other mobile home parks about the parks that closed.

1. It was just a business deal, nothing we could do.

2. The city commission didn't have a choice they had to rezone those parks.

3. Those parks were older with older homes no great loss.

4. We're a nice park, we're safe, the city likes us.

5. A city commissioner said we're the park that's staying.

6. That was a trailer park they closed, we're a mobile home park.

7. If we don't stir up trouble or make a fuss about those other park closings maybe the city will do right by us when a developer wants to close our park.

8. Our park owner will like us better if we don't have an HOA.

9. The park owner's request for a rezoning is just business, it won't affect the operation of the park.

10. The developer buying our park says they want to own mobile home parks as part of their business plan.

11. It doesn't matter what our city's Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Plan shows for our park, we're here now.

12. We're renters. We have no stake in the land. We have no rights. The law is the law. Can't fight city hall. It's a done deal. Can't stop a rezoning. It's the man's land he can do what he wants with it. We got six months and $1,375. for our home, that's all the law requires.

Mobile home owners are not apartment renters who have a bad day moving the couch when the lease is up. They buy their homes and are required to improve the mobile home park owner's property with landscaping, florida room, carport, driveway, patio, etc. This gives them a stake in the land.

The success of the park as a profitable enterprise all these years was dependent on the mobile home owners who kept the park nice enough others wanted to live there.

In 1984 Florida passed s723 the law that protects mobile home owners and changed it in 2001 from paying fair market value for the homes in a closing park (same as eminent domain) to paying scrap metal prices of $1,375. for a single wide and $2,750. for a double no matter what its true value while at the same time allowing local government to pass building regulations making it impossible to move these homes to other parks without bringing them up to code.

Under s723.083 the zoning authority is required to make a determination there is adequate and suitable alternative housing affordable and available to the mobile home owners within the limits of their zoning authority before the land can be rezoned. This is likely being ignored because these people think they are powerless. Even some courts have chosen to misunderstand the simple meaning of this law when dealing with important politicians and developers vs people in mobile homes, even those with life time leases.

As a final indignity the IRS claims this is voluntary abandonment so the loss can't be taken off the taxes.

If you think Florida mobile home owners are renters with no rights, read Florida Statute 723. You can find 723 and other resources for mobile home owners in closing parks at www.CoralLakeMHP.com

Robert Perkis

Re: Mobile Home Parks and Lori Parrish 12/21/2007

Mr. Perkis

We completed a reassessment project just recently to try and help mobile home parks stay in operation. We consider them affordable housing.

Lori

Dear Lori Parrish Broward County Property Appraiser

Please consider taxing mobile home parks for what they are instead of the best and most profitable use of the land.

Robert Perkis