The monthly meetings at Great Brook Village have been growing feistier.

On top of steep rent increases, residents at the Belmont manufactured home community say the grass goes uncut, dead bushes linger as eyesores, and overgrown tree branches crowd windows and roofs.

Five years ago, the park’s prospective Bradley Pereira put letters on every door in the park introducing himself as a married father of two with extensive real estate experience. He warned them against purchasing the property themselves, saying their rent would increase and their services would decline.

His direct message to them about his ownership: “Everything remains status quo (or better).”

To Leroy Zutter, a 90-year-old Army veteran, those were false promises.

He came to the Belmont park in 2014, following his longtime neighbors from Maine. Zutter and his wife Diane purchased their house for $84,000 and initially paid $449 in rent each month.

Zutter’s monthly rent is now $995. He said rent increases in the last two years have doubled what they should have been, according to the formula stipulated in his lease agreement. He had to sink more money into a sump pump to drain his flooded basement two years ago.

“If one of us dies, the other can’t stay here,” Zutter said.

Residents said they’ve had enough. The park went through mediation with Oakshire Capital Holdings several times in the past, and are now in a pending lawsuit against the company.

“The residents of Great Brook Village have been placed in the untenable position of being
unable to sell their homes due to the diminution in property value directly caused by the
defendants’ actions, and they are being forced to pay unjustified and exorbitant rents,
despite their fixed and limited incomes,” they wrote in their legal complaint.

They have also been in discussion with other manufactured home parks, such as Meadows of Hopkinton, to strategize ways to fight against private ownership.

Leroy Zutter goes through documents in his Great Brook Village Home on Thursday, July 9, 2026. Credit: EMILIA WISNIEWSKI / Monitor

Their complaints go beyond aesthetics: Residents feel priced out of their own homes and worry about future increases they can’t afford. Several houses that were put up for sale had their prices reduced by tens of thousands of dollars while they sat on the market for months. They say work orders go unanswered and ownership is hard to reach and unresponsive, similar to grievances at other investor-owned parks around the state.

Oakshire Capital Holdings bought the 5.8-acre property for $4.2 million in 2021, with Concord-based Pierce Management Group overseeing the park.

Through his Concord-based attorney Robert Best, Pereira said in a statement that record-high values for manufactured homes have created a “challenging dynamic” between residents and park owners. He said they work with residents on payment plans and fee waivers when issues come up.

“We also take into account the cost of maintaining Great Brook Village to the high standard we have as well as keeping rents at or below fair market value based on other comparable manufactured communities in the state,” Best wrote.

He said the park was “one of the most beautiful communities in the state.”

Matthew Denehy of Pierce Management Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Resident Maureen Papineau speaks during the meeting to discuss issues at the Great Brook Village in Belmont. Credit: GEOFF FORESTER / For the Monitor

When Maureen Papineau bought her Great Brook home in 2023, she already knew what she was signing up for with the $1,195 monthly rent, but still thought it was quite high. She was initially asked to sign a month-to-month lease, which she feared could allow for frequent increases.

While she did not agree to that first draft and signed a yearly lease, Papineau’s rent went up $100 this year.

“There’s no policy for how they raise the rent or what you pay for your piece of property,” Papineau said.

While most residents own their homes, they do not own the land it sits on and still pay lot rent for park services. One portion of that money goes toward maintenance, such as landscaping and snow plowing. Papineau said she has no front yard and has a small patio in her backyard — what little she does have is not maintained.

“My house is my property, and yet I’m paying $1,295 for nothing,” she said.

Landscapers come to Great Brook every two weeks to conduct general maintenance. According to the park’s rules, homeowners cannot alter their own landscape without express permission from the owner. They must also receive permission to make gardens, prune trees and place fixtures in the lawn.

Some residents do their own yard work anyway, complaining about a lack of proper upkeep. Cynthia Kingsbury bought her house with her husband three years ago and worked hard to revive the lawn: it now bursts with flowers and shrubs with figures of bears, bunnies and deer in between.

But tree branches poking into her front window and a rotted bush have plagued her otherwise groomed yard. With her husband’s passing two months ago and a recent wrist injury, Cindy has had trouble maintaining the yard herself.

“I keep up with it, but because I’m paying so much money and I’m handicapped, I don’t think I should have to,” she said.

A branch crowds Cynthia Kingsbury’s front window on her Great Brook house. Credit: EMILIA WISNIEWSKI / Monitor

A dead bush has gone unpruned despite several requests from Cynthia Kingsbury of Great Brook Village. Credit: EMILIA WISNIEWSKI / Monitor

She said she has made three requests about those issues to Pierce Management Group, which have gone unanswered.

Kingsbury said her lot rent has reached $1,245 and, with only one Social Security payment totaling $1,600 per month, she has to rely on her children to help with some payments like her taxes.

“I’m just so worried about bills, so worried about being able to survive, so worried about health,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Kingsbury and others said they’re deterred from selling their homes because they can’t recoup their value. Properties put up for sale in Great Brook often linger on the market for months as the sale price drops and drops.

In the case of 28 Great Brook Dr., it was most recently listed for sale on Oct. 7, 2025, for $113,995. The current asking price is $83,900, an over 25% decrease. Another home on 41 Magnolia Ln. went down by nearly $45,000 one month after its listing in April.

Another portion of the rent is dedicated to sustaining public spaces within the park, such as the clubhouse. Along with holding monthly meetings, it’s supposed to be the hub for happy hours, game nights, potlucks and bingo.

The building’s furnace ran out of fuel in late January, which led to frozen pipes that burst and damaged the space. From then until early July, residents said the clubhouse had been closed for gatherings besides monthly meetings due to the lack of heat and hot water.

“It’s been hard socially on so many people that live here,” said resident Carol Testa. “This is their social life with the things they have here. They’re just not getting it.”

A majority of the roughly 400 manufactured home parks in New Hampshire are owned by private companies. Between 2020 to 2021, institutional investors accounted for 23% of all manufactured home community purchases, a 13% increase from 2017 to 2019, according to the Genesis Community Loan Fund.

State leaders have spoken out against such companies buying parks and raising rents. U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan said she was reviewing the trend across New England and how ownership changes are affecting residents. U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, who is running for a seat in the Senate, recently visited both Great Brook and the Meadows of Hopkinton, which is facing a similar rent crisis.

“They’re really being taken advantage of by someone who’s only chasing profit and is not maintaining this park appropriately and is charging them huge rents,” Pappas said in an interview during his visit to the Belmont park on Thursday. “My heart breaks for the situation that they’re in, and I think we have to ensure that they get some help and advocacy.”

Chris Pappas listen to resident Pam Holt speka about the issues she’s facing at her home in Great Brook Village, during a visit on Thursday, July 9, 2026. Credit: EMILIA WISNIEWSKI / Monitor

At the moment, some residents like Jack Bears have stepped up to fill the gaps. A clause in the park’s rules states the owner will clear snow off all private roads and driveways, but not private walkways. Bears, who has lived in Great Brook since 2019, clears about 10 properties per winter season to help the older people in the park.

Additionally, he cleans up dead leaves in the fall and routinely plucks out vines around the park’s gazebo and stream area, which is the responsibility of the owners, according to the park rules. He also installed a solar-powered light that illuminates the neighborhood’s easy-to-miss Route 140 entrance at night.

“I try to do what I can to help the other people, because some people are in bad situations, and I can help them out in some ways,” said Bears, who connected some of his neighbors with food banks and other resources. “I’m just trying to keep positive and give people a little bit of hope.”

The lawsuit against Oakshire Capital is still pending, awaiting a decision from the judge since April. Maureen Papineau said she hopes to see accountability.

“He had no intentions of living up to any of the promises that he made to people back then,” she said.

Great Brook Village resident Jack Bears looks over the overgrown pond area. Credit: GEOFF FORESTER / For the Monitor