White Oaks Anguish Persists as Holidays Approach
Residents Were Not Given Lease Copy; Records Said to be Moved
 

ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEXINGTON PARK — As Christmas approaches, none of the 70 residents at the White Oaks mobile home residential community have in their possession copies of the leases they signed with the company and the sword of Damocles hangs over the 20-year-old community.
The land on which White Oaks sits is owned by a high official of Baltimore County, permits director Timothy Kotorco, and his buddy Chris Holt, both from Finksburg. The county spokesperson said Baltimore has nothing to do with the land as this was Kotorco’s private matter.
One of the fist residents to move to the community, Jim Welch, 77, said he submitted a letter to the management on November 1 requesting the renewal of his lease for a year and the management would be responding to his request within 30 days.
“I requested a copy of the previous lease also. We were not given any copy when we signed the lease,” Welch said. The records were removed from the local office a couple of months ago, residents said.
The rigmarole was just too much for a veteran Clarence Perry, 80. Perry is a World War II veteran, but has called it quits at White Oaks and will be moving out the Monday following Thanksgiving.
Perry declined comment.
Welch said all residents at the White Oaks are now on a month-to-month lease and the original lease they signed a couple of years ago was apparently removed from the White Oaks and taken away to Baltimore County.
“We are being lured lulled into a false sense of security and they are going to lower the boom on us before we get a chance to do anything,” Welch said.
Some residents have purchased homes at White Oaks as recently as this past spring and are unsure what would happen to the money they put in.
“I bought a home in April,” said Liz Crosby. She is now at a total loss what’s going to happen to that home.
Welch said one other family moved out by giving back a double-wide to the original owner.
Many of the residents are octogenarian and septuagenarian, some of them wheelbound. Quite a few even sold the wheels as they were assured they would never be asked to leave the land. A former manager, Evelyn Hazelton confirmed to St. Mary’s in Shalimar, on upper west Gulf Coast in Florida.
“I just feel very sorry that they are in state of such upheaval and they don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hazelton said on Monday evening from Shalimar. She said she is willing to testify the residents were told that they could live at the White Oaks for as long as they wished and the land use would not change at the site.
Most residents now want a clearcut assurance from the owners of the land they would get at least a year’s notice to move.