Georgia property law question. Bare with me, kinda confusing.
My mom is disabled and bought an old trailer from a friend. She paid him $1000 over the course of a year to pay it off. The entire time she has been paying lot rent on it to a “mobile home community” for the last two years while living in the trailer. She got behind on lot rent so they evicted her. Well upon eviction she finds out $14 is owed on the trailer to fully own it from the “MHC” before she can get a copy of the title through the state where she has to file for the “lost title.”.
All of this information has been gathered by her talking to the office at the “MHC”
She found a friend to buy the trailer from her post eviction for $4000. For this, she will use half of it to pay the back lot rent and the friend buying it from her should be able to move it within the same county. The “MHC” is telling her even if he buys it, he must then leave it on their property for two years and pay lot rent to them for the entire two years before they’ll let him move it from their property.
The company that owns the “MHC” is based out of North Carolina if that makes a difference. My question is, Is it legal for them to do that? What should my mom do? She’s 62, Not good with technology, doesn’t hardly know how to work a computer and she lives off of Hardly $820 a month on Disibilty so she can’t really afford to fight them on this. She just found out today by her old neighbor that the “MHC” is trying to rent out her trailer for $900 a month.
My mom is disabled and bought an old trailer and hard that MHC is trying to rent it
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It truly is. And granted it is a nice big trailer park. Like they’ve got a huge Lake, trailers rent for $900-2000 a month. My moms place on the other hand is very small, barely considered a two bedroom. They charge $425 wayyy to much for lot rent and at this point with my mom on disability, she can’t afford to take it to court. She only gets $800 a month and most layers wants a couple grand to take a case.
She may be able to report it to someone and get charges placed…im not entirely sure…because its ridculous they own this park, but dont have proper paperwork to prove they own the trailers in it … then when they brought it technically they didnt buy the trailers without titles because they werent legal to sell…im sure there is a loophole for trailer parks that they could easily get a salvage/abandon title for the trailers because of how parks are/work…its a mess for sure…
this is not good…its probably a loss….if nobody has the title and no one knows whos listed to apply for it….then there is no way to legally get it in ur mothers name (there is but its expensive and timely to try and figure out how to get it listed as abandoned maybe then she can purchase it from the city…idk its a mess i know) also then they never had legal rights to sell to the friend and he never had rights to sell it to her…this is called title jumping and is highly illegal. And ive never seen anyone actually end up owning the car/trailer etc in this situation. My ex husband has my car, and they wont even let him apply for the lost title because im the one listed on there…i had to go to the DMV and get it, and then sign it over. There may be a way for the title company/dmv maybe to look up the vin and see whos listed as the owner still consult a real estate atty…but im sorry to say it sounds like a loss cause. She may be able have the friend sue mhc for the payments he made because it wasnt a legal sale (but they can say it was like rent to own, so technically till title is transferred all money is “rent”) i just saw a case like that rent to own…until contract was paid in full and title transferred all the money they paid was considered rent and not refundable when they found out she did not have the title/deed and they abandoned the property and tried to sue.
Every state varies, but a bill of sale is no good if its between someone who has no legal rights to the property to begin with and the buyer. Like i can write ya a bill of sale right now for my neighbors camper…doesnt make it yours. Maybe/hopefully there will be some loophole for ur mothers sake
not sure of the original owners but my moms friend lived in it for a long time. He “bought it from the MHC and then went to jail. While in jail he agreed to let my mom move in and buy the trailer from his so he wouldn’t lose all of his stuff. They did a written bill of Sale and he said he would apply for the lost title when he now that he is out but the MHC never gave him one, told him it was lost over the years. He lived in it for 6 years and she lived in it for two. During those 8 years the MHC has been bought out 4-6 times from random companies and a ton of paperwork has been lost.
NAL so the MHC is the original owners of the trailer…sold it to youre friend, then your mom paid off the debt and should be the actual owner of the trailer? Is there a bill of sale, a contract?
You need to take her to speak to a real estate atty possibly. 1 its illegal to sell anything without a title…and here’s the bigger issue…only the owner on the actual title can apply for the lost title…and if that title comes in and the MHC isnt the owner listed….then 1) they had no right to sell it as they arent the actual owners 2) there is no way to get that title in ur moms name…as it be next to impossible to find the original owner (address the title issue with atty)
Also i have actually heard of this clause in mobile home parks…you can own the trailer, but it can never be removed from the park ? real estate atty should know…bring ur lot contract for review
Bring up the rasing of lot rent without notice (is she month to month or has a lease)
Google teanat rights for ur state…itll have resources for assitance too…since she is renting the lot, they may know more about the having to keep it there 2 years.
Also the eviction did it go thru court? They cant legally evict her without a court order. Also if she has paperwork stating she is the owner of the trailer, they cant rent it out.
she rents the lot from them that the trailer is sitting on. The friend she bought the trailer from told her $1000 and all he owed the “MHC” was $100 which he said he paid but it was actually $114. She’s gotta apply for the lost title because the “MHC” doesn’t have the copy of it either. They’re a bunch of crooks and always have been. My grandmother has lived in the same MHC for 24 years and they constantly tais the rent for lot rent $10-20 every few months not even during a “renewal period”.
It’s not their property? I don’t see how they have any leverage over that. I train horses and just because someone brings their horse to my stable to stay, doesn’t mean I have any rights over the animal? When they decide to remove the horse from the property, they can because they own that horse. Can’t see how it’d be any different for anything. Did she sign a contract? If so does it mention anything about the contract acting as a bill of sale if payments are late or never been made? That’s the only way I could see them thinking they have ownership over it.