Mobile Home Park Suit Settled

A Palmdale mobile home park operator has agreed to pay a $1.65-million antitrust settlement to 118 tenants of the Rolling Hills Mobile Home Estates in Palmdale and a Canyon Country mobile home dealer, an attorney for the tenants said.

A suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in 1989 contended that the park operators and others forced residents to purchase “dig in” installation packages--all the foundation and preparatory work before a mobile home can be installed--at a cost of $14,000 apiece. They were also forced to purchase their mobile homes from a specific dealer, said Jim Allen, an attorney representing the residents and Apple Homes Inc., a mobile home park dealer.

As a result of the restrictions, residents paid installation costs from twice to seven times the going rate and dealers were excluded from selling mobile homes to park residents, Allen said.

The defendants included Neil Landes, Cynthia Landes, the firm of L. C. Homes, Goldland Associates and Ernest Goldenfeld, Allen said.

The defendants agreed to settle with residents for $1.4 million and to pay Apple Homes Inc. $250,000, Allen said.

“It was illegal for them to tie the rental of their park spaces to the sale of another product,” Allen said. “In this case, it was the mobile homes and the ‘dig-in’ packages.”

An attorney for the defendants could not be reached for comment.