business motivation

Residents of a Cape Cod mobile home park are declaring victory after a court decision about who can buy their park.The Appeals Court decision sends the dispute back to the lower, Superior Court, clearing the way for the residents to buy their park, and not an out of state corporation.I think this is great because it’s going to give us the opportunity to get settled in there and straighten the park out, said George Frigon, a resident of Pocasset Park.Frigon hopes the decision puts an end to a five-year dispute over who has the right to buy the park: the residents, or Crown Communities, a Wyoming company that buys and manages mobile home communities nationwide.I think that everybody in the park is excited to finally be able to live in peace and not be hassled, he said.Residents have been trying to use their right of first refusal, giving them a claim on their park if it’s for sale. State law gives mobile home park residents the right to buy their park if it’s for sale at the same price as another buyer. Mobile home park residents typically own the homes but not the land underneath.This decision is important for manufactured housing residents across the commonwealth because it confirms the interpretation of the law in a way that makes it much, much easier for the residents to go through the process to purchase their parks, said attorney Thomas Aylesworth, who represents Pocasset Park residents. It’s not supposed to be difficult.Aylesworth said the key issue in the appeal centered around the residents’ petition to buy the park. Crown Communities had challenged some of the signatures on the petition.The judge made a mistake and didn’t count all the signatures, and the Appeals Court is now sending it back to the trial judge in telling him to correct the math, Aylesworth said.Aylesworth said the decision will help everyone living in mobile home parks keep out corporate owners.The law was designed and was adopted to assist them in being the owners of their own communities so that they don’t have to suffer from the abuses that unfortunately are fairly common to the residents by landlords, he said.Attorney General Andrea Campbell also celebrated the decision.When owners of manufactured housing communities decide to sell a community, residents are vulnerable to being displaced and left without a home. I applaud this decision, which not only affirms residents right to purchase their community in such circumstances, but also rejects rigid requirements that would hinder this right, enabling residents to better protect themselves and their cherished communities, she said in a statement to 5 Investigates. The case now moves back to Superior Court in Barnstable, where a judge made the original decision in 2022 in favor of Crown Communities.A lawyer for Crown Communities said the company is committed to providing economic and quality manufactured housing and is hopeful it will still be able to purchase Pocasset Park.