Free legal aid now available for Del. manufactured homeowners

DELAWARE – Mobile homeowners – also known as manufactured homeowners – are now eligible for free legal representation in Delaware. The Delaware Community Legal Aid Society Inc. was selected to provide this legal aid. “If you have a lawyer, generally speaking you tend to do better than if you don’t have a lawyer. We have seen over the years that homeowners have not been able to assert their legal rights properly,” said Advocacy Director John Whitelaw.

President of the Delaware Manufactured Homeowners Association William Kinnick says oftentimes, finding a lawyer in the first place can be extremely difficult. “Most legal firms or Attorneys within the state have had or are currently supporting the landowner with legal support which causes a conflict of interest. Trying to find a firm or attorney to represent a homeowner who is seeking legal support is next to impossible,” said Kinnick.

Manufactured homeowners already pay into a trust fund in case they need to move, or if their home park closes. 50 cents of each of those payments will help pay for a lawyer if a manufactured homeowner gets into a dispute with the owner of the land their home is on. “In trying to get these issues addressed, it’s very difficult for individual homeowners to go up against a community owner if they don’t have legal representation,” said Whitelaw.

Whitelaw tells 47ABC that those legal disputes can involved a number of issues. For example, health and safety issues like flooding or standing water can be cause for manufactured homeowners to seek legal action.

Another example could be disputing rent hikes on the land that the manufactured home might be sitting on. “Even though we’re talking about people who own their homes, they rent the land. If there’s an issue with lot rent, which is the money they pay each month to have the homes situated on the lot, those cases are heard in justice of the peace court,” said Whitelaw.

Whitelaw says eviction cases can move very quickly, and can end up costing manufactured homeowners thousands of dollars. “Then you have to move the home. Even if it is physically possible to move the home without damaging it, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars,” said Whitelaw.

Whitelaw says oftentimes, manufactured homeowners don’t have the resources to fight those kind of legal battles. “Many homeowners in manufactured housing communities are senior citizens and or living on a fixed income. So this is not wealthy individuals, and when they are faced with disputes from the community owners, they have far fewer resources,” said Whitelaw.

At CLASI, Whitelaw says the funding will be able to cover the equivalent of one dedicated lawyer for these types of cases. But he says he plans to spread it out so that more of the lawyers on staff will be able to help out homeowners who qualify.

For more information on the free legal aid and how you can contact CLASI, click here.