30 Years Old! The Illinois Mobile Home Landlord and Tenant Rights Act

Paul Matalonis – November 5, 2010

Thirty years ago, Illinois adopted the Mobile Home Landlord and Tenant Rights Act to protect residents of mobile home parks from arbitrary evictions and unfair fees.  The law has been strengthened over the years, and today protects the rights of thousands of families who live in more than 900 mobile home parks in Illinois. 

The law was necessary because, contrary to their name, mobile homes are not very mobile.  Most move only once, to where they are first installed. Any move after that is expensive, and some older homes cannot be moved without being damaged.  Finding a place to move can also be difficult due to a shortage of mobile home lots.

Until 1980, mobile home park tenants could be evicted and forced to move for no reason at all.  Or, to avoid having to move, they could be forced to pay any fee demanded by a park owner.  The Act was passed to correct this imbalance in power.  As one court put it, the law was designed to protect mobile home park tenants from “unscrupulous landlords.”  Any mobile home park with at least 5 lots is covered by the law.

The Act’s greatest achievement is the requirement of a written lease that renews automatically. If the tenant doesn’t break the lease, the landlord can’t evict. Recent changes increased the required lease term from one to two years, and require disclosure of rent increases expected in the next three years. Unlike the 1980’s, a more common problem today is mobile home park closures.  Few new parks are being developed, and new development often threatens aging parks.  To protect against sudden park closings, the law requires park owners to notify tenants at least a year in advance.

Over the years, the “trailer court” of 1980 became a “mobile home park,” and then changed into today’s “manufactured home community.”  Unchanged, however, is the need for residents of those communities to have the legal protection the Act provides. 

Paul Matalonis,  Attorney at Law

Housing Law Task Force Coordinator                         

Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, Inc.

509 South University Avenue, 3^rd Floor

Carbondale, IL 62901

Guest View: Mortgage nightmares happening too often

By Clarissa Gaff, staff attorney for Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation in Alton, IL

Belleville News-Democrat

Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010

I read with interest your article, “Metro-east foreclosures: Many homeowners turn to Plan B.”  Al Sugitan, executive director of the Greater Gateway Association of Realtors, hasn’t run into any borrowers who have had trouble getting loan modifications.  But he has heard of people getting bogged down in the bureaucracy and resorting to Plan B — moving out or waiting for the lender to foreclose.

I am not surprised that only 31,000 borrowers nationally have had their trial modifications turned into permanent modifications under the Treasury’s Making Home Affordable program.

At Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, we’ve seen many frustrated homeowners trying to modify their mortgages because they can’t afford the payments.  The mortgage servicers lose documents, ignore phone calls, offer trial modifications, and initiate foreclosure while the trial modification is still proceeding.  The Kafkaesque nightmare of dealing with mortgage servicers causes homeowners to give up and consider Plan B.

We have learned two lessons for navigating the modification maze — be persistent and get help if you can.

Allen and Mary Pierson are some of our many clients who applied for a Making Home Affordable modification.  Their mortgage became unaffordable when Mr. Pierson was forced into early retirement and his pension and Social Security did not cover their expenses.

They received a Home Affordable modification in June and made their trial payments through September as required. They did not receive a permanent modification and contacted their lender, who said they needed to continue to make trial modification payments and submit more documents.  The Piersons made the payments and submitted more documents.

On Dec. 28, they got notice that they did not qualify for a permanent modification because they had not submitted necessary documents.  Recently I spent hours on the phone with their lender, only to be told they would have to make higher payments and make up the difference between the payments since June, or they could face foreclosure.  I called a supervisor.  He finally admitted the lender had “dropped the ball”; they had all of the documents and would reopen the Piersons’ modification application.

Mortgage servicers receive payment from the government to participate in the Making Home Affordable program.  It’s time for them to keep up their end of the bargain by taking significant steps to help homeowners save their homes. These steps should include expanding their staff, returning homeowners’ phone calls, and making good faith efforts to modify loans.

Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation receives a grant to provide counseling and legal assistance to homeowners in danger of losing their homes.  Our attorneys can give low- to moderate- income homeowners advice about the foreclosure process, do budget counseling, determine whether they may qualify for the Making Home Affordable program or other modification, and review loan and other documents.  We also negotiate with mortgage servicers to achieve affordable solutions for homeowners to retain their homes.  Borrowers who need assistance should contact our hotline at 1-877-342-7891.

Legal aid for the poor

Lawmakers should give the Legal Services Corp. the money and flexibility it needs.

Monday, November 16, 2009

View the complete Washington Post editorial at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502538.html

Legal Aid Lawyer Sees Hope for Homeowners in Obama’s Plan to Bring “Intransigent” Lenders to the Bargaining Table

By Clarissa Gaff, Op-Ed in St. Louis Post-Dispatch

April 9, 2009

Clarissa Gaff, staff attorney and Homeownership Task Force coordinator for the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, writes:   “President Obama’s Making Home Affordable Modification Plan to help struggling homeowners keep their homes is long overdue.”

View additional excerpts at: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/elert/legal_aid_lawyer_sees_hope_for_homeowners_in_obamas_plan_to_bring_intransig/