Mobile home park owners blast ‘implausible’ rent price-fixing class action

Equity Lifestyle Properties

30/01/2024 19:54

By Mike Scarcella
       Jan 30 (Reuters) - Some of the country’s largest owners
or operators of mobile home communities have asked a U.S.
federal judge to throw out a proposed class action from
residents who accuse them of conspiring to charge artificially
higher rents.
    The defendants argued in a Monday filing in Chicago federal
court that the 14 plaintiffs, including two Illinois residents,
had not presented direct or circumstantial evidence of a
conspiracy.
    The lawsuit said the community owners or managers shared
competitively sensitive, non-public information about lot rental
prices and occupancy with market research and appraisal service
Datacomp.
    Mobile parks relied on Datacomp reports to coordinate
pricing, the plaintiffs alleged.
    The companies countered in their motion to dismiss that the
“plaintiffs do not identify even a single communication between
any defendants, let alone a ‘smoking gun’ evidencing a
price-fixing agreement.”
    “ M erely buying the same publication as others in the
industry — even if one also provides information to that
publication — does not amount to an antitrust violation,” the
defendants said in a joint filing.
    The defendants include Chicago-based Equity LifeStyle
Properties  ELS.N , which bought Datacomp in 2021 for $43
million; Michigan-based RHP Properties, which bills itself as
the country's largest privately-held manufactured home community
owner with assets of more than $6 billion; and Michigan's Sun
Communities  SUI.N , a real estate investment trust.
    The companies called the claims "implausible" and said
growing demand and higher operating costs have contributed to
rising rental prices in recent years.
    Other defendants include Lakeshore Communities in Illinois;
YES! Communities in Denver, which the lawsuit said was partially
owned by private equity firm Stockbridge Capital Group; and
Inspire Communities in Phoenix, owned by private equity firm
Apollo Global Management.
    Plaintiffs' attorneys at DiCello Levitt and Hausfeld, who
said they filed the lawsuit based on their own investigation,
estimated a class size of "hundreds of thousands" of members in
the United States.
    
    The case is In Re Manufactured Home Lot Rents Antitrust
Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 
1:23-cv-06715.

 (Reporting by Mike Scarcella)