Belmont moving against Pine Gardens owner

The Board of Selectmen is asking Town Administrator Jeanne Beaudin to take legal action against Larry Dupont, the owner of the Pine Gardens Mobile Home Park along Rte. 140, after discovering that he recently moved a manufactured home it says he owns off his property without paying back property taxes.

At its meeting in the Corner Meeting House last night the board asked Code Enforcement Officer Steve Dalton what he thought about the idea of seeking a Belknap Superior Court injunction that would forbid Dupont from moving any other mobile homes it says he owns off his property.

Dalton agreed it was worth considering. “This is nothing new,” he said, referring to the town’s efforts to resolve a financial dispute with Dupont. “It’s an ongoing problem. If we take him to task maybe we can make some progress.”

Dupont was not available for comment last night.

Beaudin told the selectmen she had learned recently that Dupont had moved a mobile home off his property, noting that he was “without a permit to do so. He had no demolition permit, no form from the tax collector (indicating) that the taxes had been paid...”

Beaudin said court records indicated that Dupont had a writ of possession on the mobile home since October.

But she said when she called Dupont about the situation he indicated he was “surprised” the original owner, a Mr. Roberts, had not contacted the town telling him that he’d paid all outstanding taxes.

The administrator noted that there are at least nine other similar structures on Dupont’s property he would like to move out to make way for larger “double-wide” homes, and suggested the board consider the court injunction to prevent him.

“Clearly this is in violation of our zoning ordinances,” Beaudin told the board, adding that an injunction would “see that it doesn’t happen again… So, I’d like to find a way to be sure we get compliance in the future.”

Selectboard Chairman Ron Cormier agreed, and after a short discussion the three-member board voted unanimously to proceed with the court action.

The dispute between the selectmen and Dupont goes back to last year when the two sides came to loggerheads over the status of about a dozen abandoned mobile homes in Pine Gardens. It’s a complicated situation because manufactured homeowners pay property taxes on their structures but also pay rent to park owners — and park owners pay property taxes on the land under the homes.

Dupont wants to move the abandoned units out of his park but the town says state law forbids him from doing so until he pays the back property taxes, which total about $20,000.

The park owner says he’s not responsible for the taxes because he doesn’t own the structures, and that if the town wants the money they should him pay the back rent the original owners owed him — also totaling about $20,000 — and then take possession of the structures and sell them.

But the board is hesitant to take over the older homes because of their poor condition. Beaudin thinks it will cost more money to get rid of them than it’s worth.

“They’re saying, pay the taxes and you can have them,” Dupont explained last summer. “And I’m saying, pay the rent and you can have them.”

In many communities the town leaders abate taxes on abandoned manufactured homes and park owners are then free to move the structures out to make way for newer ones that typically produce more income for the owners.

But last summer Beaudin said Belmont’s selectmen had adopted “a new philosophy” that sought to work with local park owners to share the costs of getting rid of the structures.

“Park owners are commercial enterprises and will profit form removing the unit, and they should pay the taxes,” she explained.

Beaudin’s claim that Dupont acted illegally by moving a structure out of his park recently is based on a state statute. “No building or structure that is taxed as real estate… shall be moved from the location where it was last taxed unless the owner thereof shall produce… (a) Receipted tax bill for the tax assessed as of April 1, a certificate from the tax collector or the selectmen of the town that all property taxes owed have been paid in full, or a statement signed by a majority of the Board of Selectmen or assessors that the same may be relocated without the payment of the assessed taxes,” according to RSA 80:2-a. “Any person who fails to comply with the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”

However there is a clause in the statute that exempts situation where “manufactured housing (is) constituting the stock-in-trade of a dealer in the business of selling manufactured housing,” which is in large part what Dupont does.

He also claims the property taxes referred to in RSA 80:2-a are those of the owners of manufactured homes — not the park owners, who rents the land to the homeowner and pay his own property tax bills.

In addition, a 2005 decision by the NH Board of Tax and Land Appeals states that “only the owner of the manufactured home is subject to this tax, not the owner of the land in the mobile home park on which it may be located may have been left.” The decision also states that a Loudon manufactured home park owner who moved a structure off his land never claimed to own it, but simply that he had obtained a “writ of possession” on the land so he was legally able to remove the abandoned structure.

In recent months, the selectmen have made public their dissatisfaction with trying to work with Dupont on the issue, claiming he’s the only park owner in town who is “unwilling to work” with the Board of Selectmen.

In October, Dupont wrote a letter to The Daily Sun asking why the town waited “eight-to-10 years to collect back taxes on manufactured homes, and then (has) the landowner do all the legwork after the tenant moves out? Who owns the home? The town has all the information (about) the owner…. If it was a $300,000 or $400,000 home the own would have a tax lien on it immediately.”

It now appears that the long-running dispute will only be resolved in court.