Attorney General Beau Biden announce that his office has secured a consent order requiring a Smyrna-area manufactured home community to refund monies collected after it claimed that taxes had risen.
“We’re acting to ensure that residents of manufactured home communities are treated fairly and that community owners are held accountable to the promises they make and to their obligations under the law,” Biden said.
The attorney Bon Ayre told the News Journal the fees attacked by the AG’s office were petty in nature with the fees charged often far less than those claimed by the state.
Earlier this year, as a result of complaints received from residents of the Bon Ayre manufactured home community in Smyrna, the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Unit opened an investigation into supplemental fees that were being charged by the community to its tenants.
Investigators learned that Bon Ayre had previously claimed in advertising promotions that tenants would not be responsible for the payment of real estate taxes, and information sheets provided to prospective purchasers stated that “Real Estate or Land Taxes are paid by the owner of the land, and not by the home owners.”
While Bon Ayre subsequently modified its information sheets, the investigation revealed that it continued to foster the belief that the community owner would be responsible for the payment of property taxes, not the tenants.
Contrary to the representations made in the promotional materials, Bon Ayre sent out invoices last December billing its tenants for real estate tax increases dating back to 2006. Some long-term tenants were directed to pay up to $291 each.
Biden’s office concluded that the new charges billed to tenants to cover increased real estate taxes are considered “rent” under the law, and that imposing those charges violate Delaware’s Manufactured Home Owners and Community Owners Act because they are not specified in tenant leases. Biden’s office concluded that these additional increases in rent violated the same law, which limits a landlord from increasing tenant’s lot rent more than once per year and requires that 60-day written notice be provided to tenants before doing so.
Bon Ayre denied that it had violated Delaware law, but agreed to the terms of the consent order.
