8:30 am. – Registration
9:00 am. – 11:00 a.m. – Program
Clients – Free / Non-clients – $35

This is an interactive forum. Our Manufactured Housing Industry Group leaders will discuss the following topics:

• The Safe Act
• Long-Term Leases – Why Bother?
• Arbitration/Mediation – Is it Still a Viable Alternative to Litigation?
• Should You Buy Homes in Your Park?
• ADA/FHA Issues
• Subdivisions and Closures
• Rule Violations – To Evict or Enjoin
• Insurance – Maximize Your Coverage / Minimize Your Cost
• Property Rights Protection

For additional information, please contact Barbara Ericson at 714.432.8700 or email hidden; JavaScript is required.

HKC is a Silver Sponsor of CMPA’s 2013 Parkowner Symposium. This event is specifically targeted to the manufactured housing industry, and will cover a wide range of topics such as: Dealing with Changing Resident Demographics / Insurance Issues – Obamacare and its Impact on Your Business / Interesting Lawsuits / Financial Issues – Practical Solutions / Utility Issues.

For additional information, please contact Barbara Ericson at 714.432.8700 or email hidden; JavaScript is required.

Click Here to view the Hart, King & Coldren letter prepared in opposition to SB 510.

Click Here to view a sample letter to send to California State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, chair of the Housing and Transportation Committee in opposition to SB 510.

You might recall the City fought the subdivision “conversion” application of Pacific for years. Pacific had to file a lawsuit, which the City not only aggressively defended, even utilizing “strong arm” tactics, such as bringing a cross-complaint seeking immediate physical removal of homes owned by park tenants who were claimed to be “trespassing” in an unused City right of way. The City initially lost its battle over the subdivision in July 2012, when an Orange County Superior Court judge reversed the City’s denial of the application and ordered the City to reconsider the application. That prompted the City Council to approve the Application in November 2012.

In December 2012, a newly elected City Council, voted to reconsider the Application, purporting to rescind the prior approval, with no notice to the Park Owner. We succeeded in getting an emergency order not only invalidating the City Council’s vote, but also barring the City Council from reconsidering the Application. Later in the month the City Council voted to “re-affirm” the prior vote they had taken to reconsider the application, with only one City Council Member voting no. It was after that vote that Superior Court Judge Luis Rodriguez granted an order setting a contempt trial ― the City Council members would have to stand trial for criminal contempt of court for violating a court order.

The City Council abandoned reconsideration of the subdivision application rather than deal with a potential criminal trial. The effect of the vote was to finalize the approval of the subdivision. The City also entered into an agreement with Pacific to dismiss the cross-complaint.

The California State Senate is currently considering revisions to Government Code § 66427.5 in the form of SB 510, which would enhance the ability of local government to block mobilehome park conversions Judging by the actions of many local governments even without this authority, this change would be very bad news for park owners. The actions of the City of Huntington Beach are a prime example. While local governments have continued to fight the limitations of Government Code § 66427.5, this case illustrates that courts have enforced those limitations. Park owners should support the efforts of WMA, MHET and similar organizations to fight changes to the subdivision law.

Thursday, April 18, 10:15 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. “Ask the Attorneys” – Prominent industry attorneys will offer their best advice on issues affecting community owners, retailers and others in the industry. Bring your questions regarding compliance with new regulations and your business operations. This workshop is designed to help you understand your legal obligations and minimize risk in your business. HKC Partner, John Pentecost is a panelist.

As you may know, the MHI National Communities Council (NCC) represents the interests of manufactured home community owners, operators, managers, developers, lenders and suppliers. The NCC Forum is a daylong seminar that serves with an intense focus on manufactured home community issues – it is all about communities, communities, communities! This Forum is held on Tuesday, April 16–the day before the actual Congress & Expo begins. The fee to attend the NCC Forum is $150, a tremendous value when you see the session descriptions and the caliber of participants. There is something for every size community owner or operator.

Click here for a link to the 2013 Congress & Expo event page.

Please visit this link for additional information: http://lnkd.in/FVwjXG.

An unpleasant fact of life for any Community owner is that someday, somehow the Community may be the subject of a lawsuit. Whether the suit concerns a breach of contract claim, personal injury claim, rent control issue (the list goes on and on), the lawsuit is likely to require the Community owner to spend significant time, energy and resources (including attorneys’ fees and costs) to resolve. Even with liability insurance to cover legal expenses (assuming it is a “covered” claim), the Community business is still affected by the inevitable “down time” in having its executives and employees speak to lawyers, search and collect documents and other evidence, appear for depositions and attend hearings in court (which always seem to last longer than expected).

One way to help control and reduce the tangible and intangible costs associated with litigation is to have lawsuits resolved outside the court system through the process known as arbitration. The U.S. Supreme Court itself has noted the many advantages to arbitration, including that:

• it is usually cheaper and faster than litigation;
• it can have simpler procedural and evidentiary rules;
• it normally minimizes hostility and is less disruptive of ongoing and future business dealings among the parties; and
• it is often more flexible in regard to scheduling of times and places of hearings and discovery devices.(Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson (1995) 513 U.S. 265, 280.)

So how do Community owners get their cases into arbitration? Here are a few tips:

Plan Ahead!

The first step is to plan ahead and incorporate the arbitration process into one’s contracts and residency documents. Whether it is a rental agreement, purchase and sale contract or other type of agreement, the Community owner (and his attorney drafting the document) should make sure that the wording of any arbitration provision in a contract is sufficiently broad to cover “any and all disputes” to ensure, to the extent possible, that most, if not all, of the many expected and unexpected business disputes that arise will be covered by the parties’ agreement to arbitrate.

In addition, the attorney drafting the agreement should specify the type of law (i.e., federal, state, local, etc.) that should govern enforcement of the arbitration provision should the provision be contested by a party resisting arbitration. Often times, attorneys consider federal law to be more “pro-arbitration,” and therefore state that interpretation and enforcement of the arbitration provision is to be governed solely by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). However, for the FAA to apply, the contract itself must involve “interstate or foreign commerce” (FAA, 9 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2). Accordingly, thought must go into analyzing how federal law might apply to the contract inorder to make the arbitration provision enforceable under the FAA. This should be discussed thoroughly with your legal counsel. Whatever the strategy, careful planning should involve identifying the appropriate law governing the enforcement of arbitration and then making sure that intention is made clear in the contract.

Don’t Wait Too Long!

Often times, in spite of the work done to make sure one’s contract includes a legally valid and enforceable arbitration provision (or a separate arbitration agreement if required by your State’s laws), one’s opponent (i.e., the guy who signed the contract with you but now says he doesn’t want to arbitrate per the contract’s terms) will attempt to bypass the arbitration process by going ahead and filing a lawsuit in court. When this happens, it is often necessary for the Community owner to file a motion with the court asking the judge to issue an order to “compel” the other party to go to arbitration. Once again, the likely success the Community owner will have in “compelling arbitration” will in large part depend upon the enforceability of the arbitration provision in the contract. Assuming the provision is drafted properly and clearly, the trial court should grant the motion. However, it is important not to wait too long before seeking such an order. If the owner waits too long to file the motion, or, worse yet, participates in any significant way in the court case, then the judge may deem the owner’s contractual right to compel arbitration has been “waived” even if the parties had a fully enforceable arbitration provision agreement. So acting promptly to enforce one’s rights to arbitrate is essential!

Keep the Case in Arbitration!

The arbitration process is intended to serve as a comprehensive alternative means of resolving disputes. The parties go through the “arbitration process” which normally culminates in an arbitration hearing and an arbitration award. The arbitration award may then be converted into an actual court judgment so as to be enforceable. Up until the judgment is issued, however, most of the arbitration is controlled and directed by an arbitrator who is often times affiliated with an arbitration company, such as the American Arbitration Association.¹

Often times, while in arbitration, a party will receive some unfavorable ruling from the arbitrator and, being dissatisfied, will attempt to “go back to court” to have the court judge overrule the arbitrator’s decision. Such “appeals” back to the trial court are almost always procedurally improper and should be fully resisted. Indeed, just recently in November, the U.S. Supreme Court “scolded” the Oklahoma Supreme Court for improperly assuming an arbitrator’s role in determining whether a noncompetition agreement was legally valid, holding that it was for the arbitrator, not the state supreme court, to decide such issues. (Nitro-Lift Techs. v. Howard (2012) 133 S.Ct. 500, 503- 504.)

The bottom line is that although arbitration often times takes some planning and enforcement, the benefit to the Community owner is that the arbitration process is usually cheaper and faster than litigation, saving the business both time and money while the dispute gets resolved.

The City of Huntington Beach has relentlessly fought the effort of the owners of Pacific Mobile Home Park to convert from a rental mobile home park to resident ownership, but their latest action in ignoring a court order has resulted in the City Council Members and City Attorney facing a trial on criminal contempt charges. On December 10, 2012, Orange County Superior Court Judge Luis Rodriguez issued an order barring the City of Huntington Beach from reconsidering the conversion, but a week later, six of seven City Council members voted to affirm a prior vote authorizing reconsideration, with the encouragement and support of elected City Attorney Jennifer McGrath. Only City Councilman Matthew Harper voted against reconsideration. As a result of that vote, on January 8, 2013, Judge Rodriguez granted Pacific’s application to set a trial on contempt charges against the City, McGrath and Mayor Connie Boardman, and City Council members Joe Carchio, Jill Hardy, Jim Katapodis, Joe Shaw and Dave Sullivan.

“Ordering a contempt trial is extremely rare, particularly against public officials” stated Pacific’s attorney, Mark Alpert, a partner with the law firm of Hart, King & Coldren, “but Judge Luis Rodriguez apparently felt he had no choice where elected City Officials were disregarding a court order.” Judge Rodriguez, who has served as a city attorney in the past, indicated it was a separation of powers issue — elected officials, cannot ignore court orders.

The City’s actions are the latest in a series of questionable tactics undertaken by the City in an effort to block the conversion of the subdivision. The City initially sought to block the conversion because of the existence of an unused sidewalk right of way that had been recorded decades ago, with the City never taking any steps to actually build a sidewalk. Despite this, the City filed a cross-complaint seeking to immediately physically eject the residents who owned homes in the claimed right of way. Judge Rodriguez reversed the City’s decision to deny the tentative tract map based on the right of way, but the City persists in seeking ejectment of the residents, apparently believing the threat of residents losing their homes gave them some kind of bargaining leverage with the park owner.

The reason for the City’s opposition to this conversion is not clear and Pacific is continuing a legal use of the property and the conversion is supported by a strong majority of residents who would like to own the property under their home. It is disturbing to see this kind of heavy handed abuse of power by elected officials, who have such broad authority to impact the rights of private property owners. This case demonstrates the important role of the courts in curbing such abuses.

On February 8, 2013, the City of Huntington Beach Council members and City Attorney, will have to answer to the Court for their disregard of a duly issued Court Order.