Neighbor News
CASTLE LAKE - a downmarket Kennesaw trailer park
The long running 'class action' civil suit against the Canadian slum lords who preyed on trailer park tenants for years is about to settle.
Lopez et al v. Castle Lake Homes Corp - Case 15-1-1129 (Cobb County Superior Court)
This 'class action' suit is soon to be put before the Superior Court for an approval of a settlement. Normally when settled such cases have a provision for confidentiality as to what exactly the award will be.
Hopefully this one will deviate from the norm and we can find out how much the Canadian slum lords have to pay for their years of bad treatment of renters in their downmarket trailer park.
April 16th is the next hearing in this matter.
Find out what's happening in Kennesawfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
What is the Castle Lake suit all about?
This class action lawsuit is premised on the egregious conduct of Defendants, who preyed on low-income tenants in Defendants' mobile home park by illegally taking on the role of law enforcement and ticketing and fining them - sometimes in amounts exceeding their rent - and by secretly charging those tenants for water and sewer usage well in excess of the amounts actually paid by Defendants to Cobb County.
Find out what's happening in Kennesawfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Plaintiffs' Class Action complaint sets forth two classes of plaintiffs:
(1) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for purported water and/or sewer charges; and
(2) All current and former tenants of Castle Lake Mobile Home Park who paid any Defendant for any fine or penalty.
Collectively, Defendants are the owners, operators and managers of a 300 plus lot mobile home park in Kennesaw, known as Castle Lake mobile Home Park (CLMHP). All of the 300 plus lots in CLMHP are rented to tenants on a month-to-month basis pursuant to written lease agreements.
Georgia law prohibits fines and penalties in contracts and such penalties are legally void and unenforceable. Nevertheless, Defendants repeatedly ticketed, fined and penalized tenants for alleged trivial violations and for alleged violations not listed in the tenants' lease agreements, such as parking in a neighbor's driveway with that neighbor's permission, hosting a birthday party or playing music.
Defendants threatened eviction, either expressly or implicitly, to all tenants who did not promptly pay the illegal fines, thereby extorting payment from each tenant. Illegal fines sometimes exceeding the amount of the tenant's monthly rent payment.
Full case details can be found at: https://kennesawinfo.blogspot.com/
