Burnham Brown is the largest northern California law firm with an active mobilehome park practice. The firm represents mobilehome park owners throughout California.
Burnham Brown attorneys are readily conversant with the laws governing the construction and operation of mobilehome parks including the Mobilehome Residency Law, the Mobilehome Parks Act, the Recreational Vehicle Park Occupancy Law and federal and California State Housing and Community Development ("HCD") and California Public Utilities Commission ("CPUC") regulations governing parks and their owners.
Typical assignments on behalf of the firm's park owner clients include:
Park Operations:
The firm's attorneys assist our clients effectively operate their parks through:
- Drafting or revising park rules and regulations
- Implementing new or revised leases and property management documents
- Attending to resident relations including statutorily required meet and confer procedures for implementing changes in residency terms and conditions
- Interacting with and responding to HCD inspectors
- Proceeding with Rent Adjustment Applications in rent control jurisdictions
- Preparing employment contracts
- Reviewing compliance with California labor laws
- Preparing mandated employment and housing anti-discrimination policies and procedures
Litigation:
- Effectively avoiding or defending failure to maintain multi-party and public nuisance lawsuits
- Prosecuting landlord - tenant lawsuits including evictions, temporary restraining orders and injunctions and Civil Code §798.88 petitions to enjoin continuing serious rules violations
- Defending premises liability and serious personal injury actions
- Defended mobile-home installers, retailers and manufacturers in scores of cases, including wrongful death cases and claims brought under the California mobile-home residency laws
Representative Litigation Assignments:
- Successfully settled a failure to maintain lawsuit brought against the owners of a large mobilehome and RV park that was originally developed as a "KOA" type facility. The lawsuit, which was organized by a former disgruntled resident manager, alleged a myriad of defective common area conditions and residents' personal injury claims. An early evaluation of the claims resulted in a settlement for approximately 25% of the estimated exposure, including plaintiffs' attorneys' fees.
- Aggressively avoided a potential failure to maintain lawsuit against a small rural park in which California Rural Legal Assistance ("CRLA") attorneys were establishing relationships with park residents. The matter was diffused through a series of communications and attendance at a residents' meeting to provide the park's perspective on issues and constructively respond to residents' stated concerns.
- Obtained injunctive relief for the removal of pit bull dogs that were attacking park resident children.
- Evicted tenants that were operating a "meth" lab in a rural park home. Special care was taken to work in cooperation with the local police narcotics unit to avoid interfering with an ongoing police investigation.
- After a series of demurrers, successfully obtained a dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a tenant that was being evicted for non-compliance with written rental agreement terms and conditions and failure to comply with park rules and regulations.
- Creatively settled a public nuisance and injunctive relief claim brought by a local government against the owners of a small rural mobilehome park. The government entity refused the park's efforts to improve its septic systems. The lawsuit was designed to force the closure of this park. The case was settled after the government entity agreed to our request that an environmental engineer serve as a mediator which resulted in the parties accepting the mediator's engineered septic systems rehabilitation plan.
Purchase, sale and refinancing transactions:
- Negotiating contract and loan documents with an emphasis on unique issues that arise in the mobilehome park context
- Working with our client's tax advisors, terms and conditions contained in loan documents are negotiated in a manner that benefits our client's future needs including estate planning issues and future sale of the park
- Conducting or assisting with due diligence and inspection issues applicable to the acquisition and sale of parks, including regulatory compliance, physical plant disclosures, park operations and analysis of the financial operations of a park