── Crown Communities, LLC v. Austin ──
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Date: June 05, 2026
Category: General
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SJC-13841
CROWN COMMUNITIES, LLC vs. PHILIP AUSTIN, trustee,1 & another.2
Barnstable. March 2, 2026. - June 5, 2026.
Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Kafker, Wendlandt, Georges,
& Wolohojian, JJ.
Manufactured Housing Community. Real Property, Right of first
refusal, Purchase and sale agreement. Practice, Civil,
Standing, Declaratory proceeding. Statute, Construction.
Notice. Lis Pendens. Declaratory Relief. Contract,
Interference with contractual relations. Consumer
Protection Act, Unfair act or practice. Words, "Reasonable
evidence."
Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on
February 20, 2020.
Following review by the Appeals Court, 105 Mass. App. Ct.
113 (2024), findings of fact and rulings of law were issued by
Michael K. Callan, J.
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for
direct appellate review.
Kenneth S. Leonetti (Mark D. Finsterwald & Jasmine N. Brown
also present) for the plaintiff.
1 Of the Charles W. Austin Trust.
2 Pocasset Park Association, Inc.
2
Thomas W. Aylesworth (Claire A. Todd also present) for
Pocasset Park Association, Inc.
Michael N. Turi, Assistant Attorney General (Daniel A.
Less, Assistant Attorney General, also present) for the Attorney
General.
Nicholas Hoisington, Spenser Templeton, & W. Scott Simpson,
of Alabama, & Jessica Savino, for Manufactured Housing
Institute, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Alycia M. Kennedy, Jane Edmonstone, Benjamin Levine, Destin
Germany, Richard M.W. Bauer, Daniel Ordorica, & Joel Feldman,
for Massachusetts Law Reform Institute & others, amici curiae,
submitted a brief.
WENDLANDT, J. The Manufactured Housing Act, G. L. c. 140,
§§ 32A-32S (act), provides tenants residing in a manufactured
housing community with a right of first refusal before the
property on which the community is located may be sold. See
G. L. c. 140, § 32R (c). The act was designed to "avoid
discontinuances of manufactured housing communities and to
ensure that tenants of such communities are not left at the
peril of their landlords due to a practical inability to
relocate a manufactured housing unit"; it enables resident
tenants, or pertinently an incorporated association representing
at least fifty-one percent of them, "to purchase the land on
which their homes exist." Greenfield Country Estates Tenants
Ass'n v. Deep, 423 Mass. 81, 86 (1996) (Greenfield). The right,
however, is subject to certain requirements, including that such
an association submit to the property owner "reasonable evidence
that the residents of at least fifty-one percent of the occupied
3
homes in the community have approved the purchase of the
community by such . . . association." G. L. c. 140, § 32R (c).
This case presents the question whether the requisite
"reasonable evidence" includes resident tenants' signatures
affixed to a petition stating that the signatories approve of
the association's purchase. We conclude that it does and that,
accordingly, the Pocasset Park Association, Inc. (association),
presented reasonable evidence that at least fifty-one percent of
the tenants residing at the Park at Pocasset (park), a
manufactured housing community located on property (property) in
Bourne owned by the Charles W. Austin Trust (trust), supported
the association's purchase o