In a rare consolidated hearing, a panel of five county judges presided over about 210 eviction cases involving the residents of the Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park in Sweetwater — all at once.
More than 100 Li'l Abner residents poured into a sixth floor courtroom in the Miami-Dade County downtown courthouse as their attorneys argued why they should not be evicted from their homes after their landlord told everyone to leave last November.
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"All we’re asking for is that they do the right thing and give each person what they are owed,” mobile home owner Milagros Pérez told WLRN in Spanish.
Pérez said she bought her mobile home at Li'l Abner around September of 2024. Just two months later, her and about 900 neighbors received notices that the park was going to be redeveloped and they must vacate within half a year.
The landowner offered each household $14,000 if they vacated immediately. Many took the deal, but the owners of more than 200 mobile homes — including Pérez — have stayed put and hired lawyers to defend them against evictions filed against them by Consolidated Real Estate Investments (CREI), the entity that owns the land under their mobile homes.
The plight of Li’l Abner's residents is playing out throughout South Florida as affordable mobile home parks are being demolished to make way for new developments. Those left behind have few options to find a reasonably priced place to live.
Li'l Abner is one of few remaining mobile home parks in Miami-Dade County as many have moved to redevelop.
The 210 eviction cases were assigned to multiple county court judges in batches, so in the interest of streamlining the proceedings, five judges came together as a panel Thursday to hear arguments on every case with similar facts.
"We're doing it for both parties, for the landowners and for the residents only because we want to streamline the cases. We feel for the residents, of course, but we are neutral and we listen to both sides and we'll do what the law requires," said Judge Maria D. Ortiz from the dais.
The mobile home residents, represented by attorneys David Winker and Erik Wesoloski, argue they should not be removed from their homes because their eviction notices in the court docket do not list the name of the landlord issuing the notice. The notices instead direct residents to direct any questions to The Urban Group, a development firm acting as property managers during the eviction proceedings.
CREI's lawyers told the judges that the residents' argument relies on "hyper technicalities" and the landowner has a right to evict residents from the park.
" We've been talking for an hour this morning about the summons and whether it referred, whether it checked the box or whether it sufficiently incorporated who the landlord is. There are not going to be arguments about the merits of this case," Tal J. Lifshitz, attorney for CREI holdings, told judges on Thursday.
County Judge Michael G. Barket told attorneys he would not be ruling on any motions on Thursday, and would instead file his rulings later after examining arguments.
The Li'l Abner residents also have a separate, ongoing class action lawsuit against their landlord in which they assert that Florida law requires the landowner to give the mobile home residents the option to buy the park. They claim they were not given this option, so the evictions are improper.
The residents' attorneys have asked the panel of judges to put a hold on the eviction cases — if they aren't thrown out — until the class action lawsuit concludes.
