I came across your contact information through information on sham conversions, and wanted to at least touch base with you. In all likelihood, I will soon be needing the services of a lawyer on a personal, but somewhat related matter. I currently have a Salespersons license through HCD to sell mobile homes, and until recently, was the Founding Director of the Manufactured Home Owners Network.

My wife Deborah and I recently sold our 1978 Skyline mobile home in Pacific Mobile Home Park in Huntington Beach. We partnered up and agreed split the profit with my dealership, Monarch Homes, only asking $20,000, well under market value. We had recently purchased a condominium in Newport Beach, and our main objective was to just get out from paying the monthly space rent for the park. Monarch Homes was instrumental in finding a buyer for us, and since our mobile home was free and clear, we did not mind splitting what we got for it with them. Actually, that was our idea.

This is just a brieft background leading up to actually selling the mobile home for $20,000. Because of its age, and we were asking well under market value, we sold it “as is” but also knew our obligation to disclose all known problems and issues that may be present. This we did, not only in writing, but verbally, through two different walk-throughs. We even purchase a one-year warranty for the new buyer if anything did go wrong after the fact.

However, it looks like the buyer may in all likelihood file a “Failure to Disclose suit against us anyway, in spite of the fact that we informed her of everything we knew that was wrong with the home. Monarch Homes seems to be pretty much taking her side on this, even though we basically gave them half our sale price, which was a 100% profit for them. The park called for a Health & Safety inspection, which only Monarch Homes received a copy, but were were told by them that the roof leaked and the water heater needed a new floor. We had those fixed.

Now the buyer is claiming all type of things that are wrong with the home, and also saying that we never told her about them. Non of this is true, but we may be forced to defend ourselves anyway, and/or pay extra money to make this go away. Naturally, Monarch Homes doesn’t want to tap into any of money we gave them for helping us, thus putting all the burden right back on us. However, this is an older one-bedroom, one-bath mobile home, now with two kids and two big dogs living in it. We feel they simply broke many of the things themselves, but are trying to put the burden and blame back on us.

This includes holes in the floor (they were the cable wires they had removed for satellite), a crack in the toilet (there was no crack when we lived there), the drain pipe under the bathroom sink was broken (it wasn’t, and would have been noticed the first time used, not weeks later), the heater did not work (it not only worked just fine, but if not, but would have been noted in the Health and Safety inspection if it wasn’t), the mobile home electric was not upgraded and could not handle the parks upgrade to 100 amps (the park was ungraded to 100 amps years ago, and every home, including ours, presented to problem whatsoever), she claims that the circuit breakers keep popping (she want to take the heater out completely and use that area for storage, therefore if she had electric heaters throughout the home instead, we can’t be held responsible if that is now overloading the circuits), and the list goes on and on.

If the heater did go out after she moved in, we naturally can’t be responsible for things that do break after the fact, but this is also why we purchased a one-year warranty for her. In addition, she seemingly has someone, or a handy-man, who is no-doubt trying to stir the pot, and get extra money out of her through scare tactics by trying to claim or fix things that don’t really need fixing.

The bottom line to all this is, Monarch Homes gave us the impression that this was a problem in the making. That is why we are contacting you know now with this brief background, for in all likelihood we will soon need your services to help defend us.

Please advice as to what our next step should be.

Sincerely,
John & Deborah Sisker
jsisker@sprynet.com
(949) 791-8302