Residents of two trailer parks in Auburn say they face unfair rent hikes, deceptive practices

“Once a tenant decides to place their mobile home unit in a park, they essentially cannot move it. That makes them a captive party for negotiating purposes with community owners, and community owners know that.”

Residents of two mobile home parks in Auburn are claiming in a class action lawsuit filed this week that their landlord company unfairly raised rents while knowingly ignoring and misrepresenting their rights.

Mobile homes remain one of the few affordable options as housing costs skyrocket in the state. Most of the residents are seniors or people with disabilities who survive on a fixed income, the complaint said.

Five residents of American Mobile Home Park and Whispering Pine Estates, two parks several miles apart on Washington Street, are suing Parakeet Communities. Parakeet owns dozens of other parks across the country and took over the two Auburn locations in 2022, a lawyer for the residents said.

But, these mobile homes owners and renters say they’re being shortchanged. Many of the homes can’t actually be moved, an attorney for the residents said, which creates a power imbalance for residents.

Lawyers for Civil Rights is behind a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 100 residents at both parks, staff attorney Jacob Love said. He called the term “mobile home” a misnomer.

“Once a tenant decides to place their mobile home unit in a park, they essentially cannot move it,” Love told Boston.com “That makes them a captive party for negotiating purposes with community owners, and community owners know that.”

Starting in November, Parakeet began issuing lease offers to both renter-tenants and owner-tenants at each park. Whispering Pine only houses owner-tenants, who own their mobile home unit and pay to rent a lot. Renter-tenants rent both the unit and the lot.

According to the complaint filed in Worcester Superior Court, renter-tenants named in the suit saw monthly rent increase of around $350. Owner-tenants saw more than $100 increase.

Amy Case, a renter-tenant at American, has to handle expenses related to a brain tumor removal in 2021, the complaint said. In a statement, she said Parakeet “has made life a living nightmare.”

“Its actions have stretched our finances past the limit and created constant fear that we will lose our homes,” Case said. “We deserve to be treated with fairness and respect and brought this case to secure our legal rights.”

The rent increase notices also omitted legally required disclosures, issued non-uniform rent increases that exceeded fair market rates, failed to offer mandatory five-year lease offers, and circulated illegal rules to owner-tenants, the complaint said.

In March, Parakeet sent another round of leases to owner-tenants, which had “intentionally” misleading statements and false assertions about the rent totals, the complaint said.

Love said Parakeet’s owners even obscured their own identity and the identity of their resident agent, who has to be identified to serve a lawsuit.

“You can’t look at any of these individual actions and violations in a vacuum,” Love said. “They all combine together to diminish the bargaining power of the residents to ensure that they’re making decisions based on less information than they’re legally entitled to have.”

The residents sent a demand letter in April, and “Parakeet failed to respond to the demand letter with a reasonable settlement offer,” the complaint said. Since then, the five named residents have been paying the increased rent to avoid eviction, but Parakeet has launched eviction cases against the unnamed tenants.

“This lawsuit not only seeks to vindicate the rights of those residents and preserve their housing, but to prevent other community owners from engaging in unfair and deceptive conduct going forward,” Love said.

Parakeet did not reply to a request for comment sent Tuesday.

The entire complaint is available here.