I think Alice has provided a very well thought out, excellent plan. If you can't afford an attorney (even with pooled resources), contact legal aid (as suggested by another poster).
I'm thinking you should get legal advise even before you find alternate living quarters for your dogs. As you can tell from all these posts, we all support you 100%.

 Quote: alice oliver

don't go to the press prematurely or you will back the landlord into a corner!

take this is in measured steps:

1. call a meeting of your fellow responsible dog owners living in the trailer park. come up with a plan together. i suggest you decide, as a group, that you will not move your dogs.

2. Consult an attorney to find out what your legal standing is. If there are attorney's fees, you can all share in them. My best guess is that you are all grandfathered in. It doesn't matter what the original contract says, since the previous owner waived that provision by permitting the dogs. But find out from an attorney. Then write a letter to the landlord and everyone in your group sign it.

2. the landlord may see reason, if you give him a way to back down while saving face. don't go on the attack unless he's proven he can't be reasoned with. that means, don't go to the press. you will cause him to lose face and then he may fight you tooth and nail. perhaps propose to him that he meet with all of you to work out a compromise solution where everyone wins.

3. if he won't see reason, i'd simply ignore his order. it could take forever before he can enforce it--if ever.

4. if and when you are in imminent danger of losing your dogs, only then do you go to the press. that's when you take the gloves off.

go back and look at how you have written about this situation. you are giving the landlord all the power. but you don't have to. take it back and then you are very powerful!

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! But if it does come to this: as a former journalist, I would tell you to skip the letter to the editor and speak to a sympathetic REPORTER. A well-written article will have much more weight (and will be read by MANY more people) than a letter to the editor. Let the letters to the editors be in support of you, not by you.

Keep the dogs, it can take years to legally evict you if it comes to that. The longer the process takes the more money he loses from your lot because it'll be occupied and unleasable to anyone new till you leave. By the time the media gets wind of what's going on and all the other dog owners express their complete hatred for the landlord, it'd take a complete asshole to not back down. The fact that he was OK with dogs to begin with when taking over a no-dog property is a good sign IMO. He is just trying to do the right, albeit very misguided thing. Call a meeting between him and all the other dog owners first, start out reasonable, see if you can make him change his mind, then if he's still holding firm you can start with media and attorneys. A consultation doesn't cost all that much and he will be able to tell you where you stand pretty quickly.

Damn...go get 'em girl. What a slew of support here. My initial post was more geared towards the "end result" the fact that in my state/city, what the landlord says, goes...that was my thinking initally, however, you have lots of ammo here and I wish you the best in the crusade!!!

As has been said, the red tape involved will take time and thus buys you time. Remain practical and level headed with this issue and you'll likely go far.

In full agreement with what others have said on the board where advice is concerned. I went throught the same thing when I bought my first place many years ago, also in a mobile home park. I refused to comply, and waited for an eviction (like you I owned the home). When the eviction came I enlisted the help of a legal-aid lawyer because of my financial circumstances, and fought tooth and nail every step of the way. I had many folks in the park against the idea of dogs, and no one else willing to get involved. It took a very long time, but I DID win. Ultimately I was so disgusted by the park management and my neighbors that I sold my place and moved out anyway, but not before winning the case. It CAN be done, you DO have a say, and if you have others who are willing to fight too I'd say you have a pretty good chance of winning. Don't give in and get rid of your dogs just because of irresponsible people/park managers on a power-trip. I really don't think they have a legal leg to stand on. Fight!!

I contacted legal aid first thing this morning. They can't take me/us on as clients as they are not accepting new "housing case" issues. I guess I didn't realize that they only "take on" a limited amount of cases. At this point, I'm just trying to find out what my legal rights are here in New York. What legal aid did tell me is that I have to be legally served, not just a photocopy of a typed letter that isn't even on letterhead. They also stated that I need to organize a Tenant's Association and try to come up with a fair negotiation and approach the landlord first. I did work on that over the weekend from the advice I received here. I came up with what I thought would be a fair "Dogs in the Park" rules. I'm going to meet with the other two responsible dog owners in the park as soon as they are available to see what they think about it and make any changes we agree upon. I'm still waiting to hear back from the landlord to see if he will at least be open to listening to other fair solutions.

After speaking to legal aid, I contacted a lawyer here locally and have an appointment for a consultation on Thursday. From what I could find on the net about the laws in my state, the laws that govern mobile home park's differ from those that govern tenants in an apartment/apartment complex.

I also contacted our local Humane Society this morning to ask if they had any insight that might help me. She said it is tricky because the lease and rules from the original owner state that dogs are not allowed. This guy purchased the park from the bank after the property had been foreclosed on and she wasn't sure how that flowed over to the tenants as new leases were never passed around and signed, even though he verbally told those us that he didn't have a problem with us having dogs. I have found out from reading up on the laws here that he can't evict me in retaliation.

Legal Aid also gave me the name and number of the Dog Control Officer for my town and said that being that the one tenant's dog has bitten two children, it should be declared a dangerous dog. I'm not sure what that means other than what the name implies.

I will update everyone as I get more information. Thank you all for your wonderful advice and support.

Kristina

another option is mediation. if you have trouble negotiating with the landlord yourselves, ask him if he'd be willing to go to a mediator to help all of you work out a solution.

I was wondering about the mobile home laws. It's tricky because you're a homeowner AND a renter.

Keep plugging away, and hang in there. I would ABSOLUTELY band together with a tenants/homeowner's association. Time and time again that has had more legal weight than just one individual.

Have you heard back from the landlord yet?

Any update, Kristina?

I hope no news from you is good news!!

Hi Kristina... I am a landlord in the state of illinois and can only explain to you the laws here but i am sure that they dont differ to much from state to state...but then again this is america...and the good old boy system might be alot different in your state.....there should be a mobile home association that can provide you of the laws for written leases in your state....

that said ...i allow dogs but no outside dogs ...they live inside ...no kennnels.... no dog runs...they are not to be left outside to bark ..they must be brought inside in a timely manner...if for any reason and numbereous complaints i will ask you to get rid of the animal or move....

the laws states that i have to give written notice to my tenants 60 days in advance before they go into effect and i can enforce them..all has to be in writing ...since there is no written lease, the last lease that you signed would be the lease that you are to follow since our leases run year to year every year we hand out new ones with the rule changes if any...also we charge extra for animals...$30.00 per dog and 15 per cat..

ok there is a way to maybe fight this but the law is on the landlord side since he owns the land, pays the property tax, ...and you rent a lot on his land....it like i rent your garage from you and next thing you know i got the relatives living with me mother her two kids and they each have 1 and 3 dogs 4 cats and thinking of getting a harley or a hoss...lol...oh i can tell you some stories in the 19 years of this game anyways...if you would like you can email me at oakpark@mchsi.com or better yet just call the office...and i will explain further...815-339-6218.....ask for david ...like most things in life its a numbers game....