Legal complexities in alternative housing: A cautionary tale from Clark CountyUpdated 2 days ago

At Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway, disputes over membership agreements, purchase contracts and bylaws have several times landed the nonprofit campground in court. These lawsuits include one from Portland resident Kim McCallister filed in December. According to court records, McCallister filed claims of “wrongful suspension of her membership at Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway, (and) for a wrongful fine imposed against her.”

In her suit, scheduled for a hearing in May, McCallister claims the board should have agreed to arbitration as required by the campground’s bylaws.

A 2023 lawsuit filed by Dale and Leta Anderson against the campground is scheduled to go to trial in October. In their suit, the Andersons said they were improperly fined and then locked out of their property after a dispute over a boundary line and improvements the couple made.

Brinton said he requested the campground enter into mediation or arbitration, but the company never responded.

The Columbian reached out to Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway multiple times by email and telephone since December, but representatives did not respond.

Living small

Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway has received more interest as the popularity of mobile homes, pre-built kit homes, skoolies (converted school buses), shipping container homes and RV parks has risen in recent years. According to a report by Investment Property Exchange Services, 73 percent of Americans surveyed said they would consider living in a tiny home.

This sort of higher-density housing has been drawing buyers, especially first-time buyers, said Cheryl Williams with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Southwest Washington.

“Before, for some homebuyers, it was just, ‘No way, I don’t want that. I need more yard,’ or whatever. Now, they’re compromising. … That is a healthier market than it’s ever been.”

It’s not just legal differences that make traditional homebuying different from alternative housing. Financing a manufactured home purchase can be more difficult than getting a mortgage on a traditional home. If the home is in a park or other community setting, Williams said it’s often considered personal property rather than real property, but there are lenders that specialize in those loans.

Buyers should also understand that manufactured or mobile homes lose value over time, rather than increase in value, Williams said.

Even so, RV campgrounds and mobile home parks can be an affordable alternative to an expensive mortgage, homeowners and mortgage insurance, and property taxes. Add a dwindling supply of available homes to those high housing costs, and it’s not surprising that more buyers are turning to alternative housing options.

Cooperative housing

Founded in 1971, Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway has a cooperative housing form of ownership. This is similar to mobile home parks where the company or nonprofit owns the land and pays the property taxes for that land, and the individual members or tenants own and pay taxes on the improvements on their site. At Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway, these improvements include the RV and sunroom, and carport or deck.

Unlike public nonprofits, which typically rely on donations from individuals and businesses, private nonprofits are often funded through individual memberships. Both public and private nonprofits must comply with state statutes, including the Washington Nonprofit Corporation Act passed in 2022, which provided a clearer definition of membership corporations, set rules for these corporations, and outlined provisions for member admission and termination, bylaws, board member elections and voting rules.

Brinton, who is 22 and partially disabled, toured the 588-acre Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway twice. It features 1,500 recreational vehicle camp spaces, an indoor pool, sauna, boat launch and access to Lake Merwin Reservoir.

He looked at a site with a listing price of $99,000 that included an RV and an attached structure. He said he liked the idea of living near wildlife and the mountains. He thought he had found an ideal solution.

“Everyone gets their own site. You can park an RV there and then build a structure around it. You’re allowed to have a sunroom — that’s what they call it — that just directly attaches to the RV,” Brinton said, adding that the site he looked at “had the biggest sunroom built around it. It had been completely renovated so it had a full-size shower and oven and stuff, where a lot of places just have the tiny RV versions of those.”

Using a small inheritance, Brinton put $20,000 down, plus an additional $2,486 for pro-rated taxes and dues and membership fees, and signed a contract for the purchase.

Canceling the sale

After signing a contract with Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway and the seller, Brinton had to wait until his check cleared before getting the keys. In all, he said it was about six weeks between when he started the purchase process and when he could move in. During that time, he said the refrigerator/freezer, which was left full, had apparently burned out, leaving its contents to rot. The smell was overwhelming, Brinton said.

“I didn’t get to inspect the refrigerator/freezer, but I didn’t expect it to be full of rotting meat and fish,” he said.

He spent the next two days trying to clean and deodorize the vehicle with little success. When he couldn’t get rid of the smell, he contacted the seller about canceling the contract.

“We went over all of this, and I said that I didn’t want it anymore because it wasn’t in the right condition that it was advertised as,” he said.

Brinton said the seller initially agreed. But soon after, he was told his contract had gone into effect when he signed it, not when he got the keys, and that neither the seller nor Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway (which received $8,000 of the $20,000 down payment) was willing to refund any part of his down payment.

A month later, while still trying to negotiate an agreement, he received a notice from Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway that he was in breach of contract for failing to pay additional membership fees and fined $149. When he refused to pay, his gate access was revoked.

The seller, Arizona resident Rudolph Schmelka, said Brinton signed the contract and should have to meet the terms of that contract. He said the sales office “went over the whole contract with him, sentence by sentence. They went over all the terms and conditions.”

Schmelka said any food left in the refrigerator/freezer would, of course, have rotted by the time Brinton moved in but that should have been “no big deal” to resolve. Instead, he believes Brinton simply changed his mind about buying the RV and membership.

Schmelka said Brinton had plenty of time and opportunity to have the RV and improvements checked out by professionals before signing the contract, something he said he would do if he was the buyer.

When Brinton contacted him about canceling the sale, “I said fine. I’m going to basically release you from the contract. But you’re not going to get your deposit back. That’s part of the terms and conditions set forth when you signed. I said if you want to talk to an attorney about it, be my guest,” Schmelka said.

Brinton never settled in at Lake Merwin Campers Hideaway. He’s on Vancouver Housing Authority’s waitlist for an apartment. After a brief stay in a local shelter and then trying to live in his car, Brinton is now temporarily living with family members until he can get back on his feet.