Lawmakers not aware of bills regarding lot rents

Jan. 21—BLUEFIELD — Whether new legislation could aid West Virginia mobile home park tenants facing major increases on their lot rents was questioned by the representatives for Mercer County in the West Virginia Legislature.

In 2022, people living in five Mercer County mobile home parks including Gardner Estates, Elk View, Country Roads, Delaney and Shadow Wood learned that the parks had been purchased by two out-of-state companies, Smith Management LLC and Homes of America LLC

In a class action lawsuit filed by the nonprofit law firm Mountain State Justice, Inc., the plaintiffs stated that Smith Management LLC and Homes of America LLC had purchased five mobile home parks in a effort to profit from their investment, "have unilaterally raised the lot rent in these manufactured housing communities to as much as double the previous lot rent."

Attorneys for Mountain State Justice and the companies owning the five trailer parks appeared Dec. 7, 2022 before Circuit Court Judge Derek Swope. Mountain State asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order that would keep the Mercer County Health Department from giving permits to the mobile home parks. After hearing both sides' arguments, Swope said he was not granting a temporary injunction, adding he could not freeze lot rents or order the companies not to raise them.

The issue about the increasing rents would need to be addressed by the Legislature, Judge Swope stated.

House Majority Whip Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, stated that he did not know of any proposed bills addressing the issue of out-of-state buyers raising the rents for mobile home lots.

"I am not familiar with a bill at this point about the issue," he said. "It's sort of a conundrum for me. I understand the problem and I'm extremely empathic to it; however, I'm not one that believes in wage and price controls, so I don't know how to solve the problem. At this point, nobody has offered me a solution that I think is viable."

Gearheart said Tuesday that he had not been contacted by anybody facing increases in their home's lot rent, adding he did not think any of the affected mobile home parks were in the 37th District.

"I have followed the problem," he said.

Normally, rent prices will be in a contract, Gearheart stated. Previous landlords at the trailer parks could have increased their rents if they had chosen to do so. Tenants planning to stay on a piece of property normally have a long-term contract, and anything else is short term.

"I don't understand that business model to be perfectly honest," he said about the rent increases. "I see it running off tenants and I don't see any new tenants coming in."

Gearheart said he thought that Judge Swope was correct when he said the Legislature would have to be the entity that addresses whether rents can be raised at the mobile home parks.

"We don't control rent prices in West Virginia, and I don't know if there's a desire to do that," he stated.

Senator Chandler Swope, R-6th District, said he had not seen any bills concerning the lot rent situation or knew if any had been proposed.

"I have discussed it with our Senate leadership to get their feelings on the matter, " Swope said.

There are some states that have passed legislation for rent control, but Swope said he did not know of any program that could actually function in West Virginia. Creating one would be a challenge.

"It's very difficult to write a statutory control that is fair and reasonable not only for today but into the future," he stated. "In other words, what is the right number to put on it? Where should a cap be? For example, can you raise it some percentage for a year, for example; so if you have a statute, it has to be specific. So what is reasonable?"

A bill might be reasonable for the specific situation in Mercer County, but not for other situations in other parts of the state.

"It would have helped those people in this specific instance here in Mercer County, but who might it hurt?" Swope asked. "For every action, there's a reaction."

Swope said he had received about half a dozen phone calls and the same number of emails about the lot rents going up in the county.

"I assume they were Mercer County residents," he stated. "Because I had heard of it, I brought this subject to our leadership some time ago."

Delegate Doug Smith, R-Mercer, also said that creating legislation addressing the lot rent issue would be "very difficult."

"It's one of those private enterprise kind of things, private business kind of things," he said, adding that he did not like what was happening when companies increase the lot rents.

"It's like I said all along, it's egregious what these people are doing to the hardworking people of West Virginia and people on fixed incomes," Smith said. "But as much as I emphasize with these people, this is a private enterprise business. I don't like it, what's happening, but it's what private business does and there's not a lot we can do other than change laws, and there's no appetite for changing laws to implement any kind of rent control on private enterprises."

Smith said he has not seen any proposed bills for controlling rent increases.

"There could be something out there, but there has not been anything introduced as far as I know," he stated. "I don't foresee any appetite for rent control with this conservative legislature at this time."

Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, was unavailable for comment.

Tenants at Elk View Mobile Home Park were uncertain about what would happen with their lots. One tenant, Pamela Parker, said her home was on a lease with the park's previous owner. She said that when her family moved there three years ago, they had to have a rent-to-own agreement or move. This lease is set to expire in 2026. The total rent is now $600 a month: $400 for the lot and $200 for the trailer.

Her mother, Violet Simms, said she was not sure if having this lease is going to be helpful.

"We don't know if our lease is going to be any good, if it's going to help us or if we're going to get an eviction notice," Simms said, adding that they had told by the new owners that their lot had been "grandfathered in."

They did not know if their rent would be increasing. Simms said if the rent increases by $125, she cannot afford it.

"I just don't have $125," she said.

In another part of the park, Tyler Mathena and his family, who have lived there for a little over a year, were wondering to their options, too.

Mathena said their rent situation was "just the same thing as everybody else."

"We never got any actual confirmation from the people who own the place about it, and we don't even know who they are and we're just kind of waiting to see what happens, I guess," he said.

Their lot rent could increase by $150 raising the total rent to $850.

"It's already $700. The lot rent itself goes up. I think it was going to be $550 total, the lot rent was, the rest for the trailer," Mathena said.

Mobile home park tenants could have their manufactured homes if lot rents increase, but it's an expensive choice to make.

"Well, I mean, if we've got to do it we've got to do it. It sure makes things hard, I'll tell you that." Mathena said. "I mean, we're prepared to do whatever we've got to do. There's nowhere to really go, you know. We got our 9-month-old son, so it would be kind of hard to get up and go. It would be hard to get the money to go."

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com