AUBURN — The residents of two mobile home parks are suing their property owner for financial restitution months after they were handed rent increases as high as 40% that their attorneys are calling “illegal.”
The suit comes months after Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based organization representing the residents of Whispering Pines Estates Mobile Homes and American Mobile Home Park, along Washington Street, demanded in a letter that the owners, Parakeet Communities, retract the new lease demands.
In April, they followed with another letter, threatening to sue.
After Parakeet did not change its stance, attorney Jacob Love said, “We just really had no choice but to follow with a suit.
“They basically refused to negotiate with us,” said Love. “They’ve taken the position that they’ve done nothing wrong, that they’ve committed no illegalities.”
Parakeet, a Maryland-based company, owns and manages communities that comprise renter-tenant and owner-tenant residents on low and fixed incomes, often due to disability and old age.