Guys, one of the things that can hold up your entire deal is mobile home title issues. On one of our most recent deals a small title issue actually took us 4 weeks to fix and almost blew up the entire deal.
So you’re going to want to pay attention to the tips in this blog post. We’re going to talk about 5 things you need to be aware of when you’re looking to transfer a mobile home title. This is so that you don’t lose out on mobile home profit and you don’t blow a deal just because you don’t know the basics.
Tip #1 Liens
In our state here in Arizona, that Lien holder is usually listed on the title. Now, a Lien holder is someone that is owed funds to the home, but is using the mobile home as collateral.
Do some due diligence in your state to make sure that you’re buying your mobile home free and clear. And that there’s no Lien that you have to pay off before you transfer the title.
Tip #2 And, Or & And/Or
If there’s multiple owners listed on the title, there’s a special way that they’re going to have to sign and release authorization. And there’s a few different variations on the titles. This is something that we deal with in Arizona, and you don’t want to have the owner sign off the wrong way.
So if your title says AND this means that both individuals listed on the title have to sign to release the title to you and open the title to you as the investor.
If it says Or either one of the individuals listed on the title can sign to release and open the title.
If it says And/Or both individuals have to sign and be present to open the title UNLESS one of the individuals is deceased. In that case, the individual who’s still living and listed on the title must present a death certificate to authorize release of the title.
Tip #3 Notary
When a title has a notarized signature by the owner on the title this is considered open. And now that title can be transferred. But be careful because most MVDs will not accept this notarized signature if there’s an error in it.
So if the notary puts the stamp in the wrong place, or maybe there’s a transcription because they wrote something and they tried to cross it out real quick, that would be an error. And most MVDs will not transfer the title.
That’s why we recommend working with someone that has done this before. If you are working with a mobile notary or someone that’s authorized notarized documents at a bank, just simply ask them, ‘Have you done this before?’
You want to make sure that they are not causing you any type of time delay with getting the deal done. We always highly recommend to also just get it done at the MVD. Because even if they mess up there, they can still get it done. It’s not going to cause you any delay on getting your deal completed.
Tip #4 List Price
Now in our state of Arizona, the titles will have a list price listed on those titles. And many sellers will try to justify that this is the current market value of the home. But in our experience we find that this is rarely ever the case.
Most of the time, it doesn’t take into account the condition of the home or the location of the home. It’s mostly just a randomized number that comes from the county. So if you’re going off of that list price, or your sellers going off of that list price, you’re going to have to educate them and let them know that this is just not the case. That’s not the true value of the home.
This is not real estate. So there’s usually not an assessor going around to each mobile home park and assessing every mobile home. So be clear about this.
Tip #5 Two titles for double-wides
Double wides have two titles and in most states, single wides have one title and double wides have two titles because there’s two separate VIN numbers associated with each side of the double-wide when they leave the factory.
Errors can occur from time to time so with double wides just make sure that the numbers are different on each of the titles before you get further with processing your deal
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