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SABATTUS (WGME) — Mobile homeowners at Begin Estates in Sabattus are scrambling to get help after receiving notice that the rent they pay for their lots will increase by $150 per month.
The increase comes just as a new state law aimed at protecting residents from extreme rent hikes is set to take effect.
“They don’t care. They don’t care about the residents,” Suzanne Armstrong, who has lived at Begin Estates in Sabattus for 22 years, said.
Armstrong and her neighbors received a letter last week informing them that lot rent, which covers the land beneath their homes plus water and sewer costs, will increase to $580 per month starting Oct....
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In a statement, Begin Estates management said it had no choice but to implement the increase expenses due to a rent control bill recently passed at the State House. The park says they have to anticipate future expenses now, since the legislation could stop them from raising rent in the future.
This is the reality that blue-state leaders create when they dangle the possibility of rent control. Of course, any smart park owner is going to raise their lot rent to market immediately or lose the opportunity forever. Without threatening rent control, the owner might have gone up $50 a year for three years as opposed to $150 in one whack. Who’s to blame? Certainly not the park owner.

