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A surprise eviction

Despite assurances, Fern Hill Mobile Home Park residents are left to scramble for new homes after their park is sold.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published December 30, 2005

In November, residents of Fern Hill Mobile Home Park saw survey markers go up.

So when their landlord, Randolph Brown, came to collect the rent, they said they asked him whether he was selling the park.

He dismissed their concerns as "rumors," they said. A week later, the eviction notices arrived.

Brown had sold the Fern Hill Mobile Park to a development company in Minnesota. His former tenants would have to move out by Jan. 7.

On Tuesday, Brown said he never lied to anyone.

"They asked, had it been sold and would they be evicted before the holidays," he said. "The answer to that was no."

Although he knew about the sale before December, he said, "I wasn't really comfortable giving notice before the deal was a done deal and the deposit was in and that money was hard money."

Brown said he thought news stories about the eviction had inaccurately portrayed him as "cold and callous."

He pointed out that after residents called the Tampa Tribune and news stories appeared, the park's new owners agreed to let residents stay through Jan. 31 without collecting any more rent.

"Realistically, 60 days with 30 days' free rent, that's very gracious," Brown said. "Sixty days should be adequate."

Many residents feel differently.

"I'm very disappointed in mankind right now," said Peggy Fletcher, 53. "How could he be so cruel as to take the $700 from me in December and five days later give us the notice to vacate?"

For Fletcher, as for many of the park's residents, Fern Hill was a home of last resort.

She spent much of the summer searching for a place she could afford, and that would accept her, her cat, daughter and 5-year-old grandson. When she moved into Fern Hill in October, she said, she thought she'd found a place to put down roots.

"We thought we were going to be here at least four or five years," she said this week, sitting inside her trailer. "We thought we were so lucky when we found it. But it didn't work out that way."

She said she's convinced that Brown rented to her knowing that he would sell the 10-acre park.

"You don't sell this big a piece of property overnight," she said.

Brown said he was within his rights not to mention the park's possible sale to incoming tenants.

"The deal wasn't sold in October," he said.

Next door to Fletcher, Corina Salazar, 11, was helping her grandmother pack up the household for the move to Ruskin.

Corina said she was playing outside when she overheard Brown telling her grandmother, Corina Pina, 42, that the family would have to move.

She started to cry, she said.

"I don't want to switch schools," she said.

Pina said she also asked Brown in December if he was planning to sell the park, after residents noticed survey stakes in the ground and markings on the trees.

"He told me those were just rumors going around," she said.

Pina said she didn't believe him and refused to pay December's rent. She said she's glad she did.

"He collected rent and late fees from a lot of people," she said, shaking her head.

Farther down the dirt driveway that runs through the mobile home park, Michael Asad, 31, also said he asked Brown in December if the park would be sold.

"He told me straight out it wasn't for sale," he said.

Florida Public Interest Research Group director Mark Ferrulo said that the tenants of Fern Hill seem to have been caught in a common trap.

While Brown's actions "certainly raise questions of ethics," he said, "he may be within his legal limits."

State laws protect mobile home owners from having their parks sold out from under them. But Fern Hill tenants rent their trailers, so those laws don't apply to them.

What's more, Fern Hill tenants were on month-to-month leases. Florida law allows a landlord to give a tenant on a month-to-month lease only a month's notice to move out.

"This is why we really emphasize people getting at least a yearlong lease," said Ferrulo. "Month-to-month is dangerous, especially in Florida, because so many rental properties are being converted into condominiums. That reality can really surprise renters and hit them hard."

Fletcher said she has put some money down to hold a rental house for her family.

But she said she's still trying to raise another $2,500 to pay the first and last month's rent, security and moving costs.

"We had no Christmas," she said. "We couldn't afford it. We were putting money away for another place."

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 08:39:05]