Out of House and Home: The Disparate Application of Louisiana's Eviction Laws to Mobile Home Owners

AuthorJared A. Clark
PositionJ.D./D.C.L., 2016, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University.
Pages1115-1142
Out of House and Home: The Disparate Application
of Louisiana’s Eviction Laws to Mobile Home Owners
INTRODUCTION
Natasha Thompson, with her partner John and children, moved into
the Pine Haven mobile home park five years ago in Moss Bluff,
Louisiana.1 Natasha spearheaded the family’s move into the park and even
convinced her sister to move her family from South Carolina into Pine
Haven.2 The family owned the mobile home they lived in, but leased the
land underneath the home from Pine Haven.3 Natasha thought she was
finally settled until one day she was served with a 15-day notice to vacate
the premises.4 The landowner’s decision to evict Natasha was not because
of any failure by Natasha to comply with her lease, but rather because the
landowner had sold the land on which Natasha’s mobile home was
situated, and the buyer had no intention to maintain the land as a mobile
home community.5 Many of the Pine Haven residents lived on Social
Security or held hourly wage jobs, barely earning enough to make the lot
payments of $145 per month, and many faced homelessness as a result of
the eviction.6 Moving Natasha’s home in particular would cost 34 times
her monthly rent, a significant amount in such a short time.7
Natasha’s situation occurred because Louisiana does not have
legislation specifically addressing the unique circumstances of mobile
home owners facing eviction. Currently, Louisiana eviction laws subject
mobile home owners to the same speedy eviction procedures as a typical
apartment dweller.8 If a lessee fails to pay rent on time, Louisiana law only
allows additional time to cure nonpayment of the rent, and even that
remedy is left to the discretion of the court.9 Considering the financial
Copyright 2017, by JARED A. CLARK.
1. Shannon Sims, Trailer Par k Nation: The Grea t Eviction, OZY (May 4,
2015), http://www.ozy.com/true-story/trailer-park-nation-the-great-eviction/400
29 [https://perma.cc/W9QS-SDKR].
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. Id.
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. Id.
8. See Monroe Hous. Auth. v. Coleman, 70 So. 3d 871, 87273 (La. Ct.
App. 2011) (applying summary eviction to an apartment dweller); see also
Williams v. Re ynolds, 448 So. 2d 845, 84647 (La. Ct. App. 1984) (applying
summary eviction to a mobile home owner).
9. LA. CIV. CODE art. 2013 (2017).
1116 LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 77
position of most mobile home owners,10 and the heavy costs associated
with moving a mobile home,11 these laws are detrimental to mobile home
owners.
Many states have enacted eviction statutes tailored to the circumstances
of mobile home owners who lease the land underneath their homes.12 Some
have gone as far as to require the landowner to establish “good cause” to
evict the tenant.13 Other states have addressed the issue by enacting
legislation that extends the period of notice required to evict the mobile
home owner beyond the time normally granted to residential tenants,
without the requirement that the landowner establish good cause.14 To
balance the needs of the landowner and tenant, Louisiana should not adopt
a good-cause statute. Instead, Louisiana should simply extend the notice
period required to evict a mobile home owner, requiring a minimum term
of one year and providing a statutory right to cure rent instead of the
current regime based on judicial discretion.15
Part I of this Comment provides background on mobile homes and the
demographics of the people who own these homes. Part II discusses
Louisiana’s laws on eviction in general and the problems these laws cause
for mobile home owners in particular. Part III surveys mobile home
eviction laws in other jurisdictions to find a more equitable approach for
Louisiana. Part IV proposes a unique solution for Louisiana to alleviate
the problems mobile home owners face in eviction. Specifically, this
Comment argues that Louisiana should move away from the trend of other
states in promulgating “good-cause” statutes and instead apply a different
regime that more fairly balances the rights of both the landowner and the
mobile home owner.
I. THE MODERN MOBILE HOME
Mobile homes have undergone a significant transformation since their
beginnings. They have grown not only in size and complexity throughout
10. See Roger Colton & Michael Sheehan, The Problem of Mass Evictions in
Mobile Home Par ks Subject to Conversion, 8 J. AFFORDABLE HOUSING &
COMMUNITY DEV. L. 231, 233 (1999); see also J. Royce Fichtner, Note, The Iowa
Mobile Home Park Landlor dTenant Relationship: Present Eviction Procedur es
and Needed Reforms, 53 DRAKE L. REV. 181, 185 (2004).
11. See, e.g., Colton & Sheehan, supra note 10, at 232.
12. See discussion infra Part III.
13. E.g., DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 25, § 7010 (West 2017).
14. E.g., N.C. GEN. STAT. ANN. § 42−14 (West 2016).
15. LA. CIV. CODE art. 2013 (2017).

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