Language in the law requires the community owners document that costs for “operating, maintaining, or improving” have gone up, and that they cannot rely just on market rents. Further, Judge Withan ruled Bon Ayre Land LLC did not try to show costs had risen. Bon Aye Land increased rents by 14.3 percent to three residents. Any increase over 1.6 percent can be challenged in arbitration.
While residents of the 194-home site community may applaud that ruling, an earlier ruling by Judge Witham in a 2014 case when he sided with the same residents in a similar case is under appeal by Bon Ayre Land to the Delaware Supreme Court. That case is scheduled to be heard next month.
Attorney L. Vincent Ramunno, representing Bon Ayre, said “The statute, frankly, it’s very unfair as applied. It’s a gotcha decision rather than on the merits.”
While residents believe the community owners have the upper hand because it is expensive to move their homes, Ramunno says community owners get a raw deal in dealing with the General Assembly on site-rent issues.
“I will ask them to, if they want to be equitable about it, to change the statute or at least make it clear,” Ramunno said of the General Assembly. “But I’m just one person. There are thousands of these tenants who just swarm the legislature.”
In another case, as MHProNews reported May 19, 2014, Bon Ayre was ordered by the state to refund real estate taxes to residents that it had advertised residents would not have to pay. ##
(Photo credit: Bon Ayre Homes)
