I’m purchasing a park in Texas with 6 park-owned homes. The seller has provided the bill of sale when he bought all of the homes together (when he bought the park 5 years ago).
He never titled them in his name with the TDHCA despite having paid county taxes on them for the last 5 years. Now that I am purchasing the park, I am not sure how to proceed. It feels risky to purchase these with another bill of sale and not being able to title them in my name. Another option is to do an abandonment of title (I don’t know much about this option).
How would you proceed in this situation? What other options do you have? We are supposed to close ASAP.
It’s not really a big deal, but more a paperwork headache. You will have to provide to the TDHCA the following: 1) two Statements of Ownership & Location (SOL’s) for the prior owner to the Seller and then the Seller to you (this one signed by a notary and the Seller as part of closing for each home); 2) $55.00 per home per SOL (so $110.00 total per home). Add another $55.00 if you want the expedited processing; 3) Copies of the Bills of Sale for each home; 4) An affidavit of fact that tells the story how the homes got from their owners of record to you. If the owners are different than the prior owner to your Seller then it can take more time to perform functions such as mailing the address of record with the TDHCA to show that the address is undeliverable, etc.
There are services to do this, such as Snickfish for a reasonable fee. I have had a quote from them for a similar situation in Texas, but I have not yet used them as I was able to easily resolve it myself. In your case I would more heavily consider this unless you have a lot of free time.
You at a minimum need to get an SOL application from the Seller to you notarized for each home and go from there. The title company should know all about this, unless you’re not using a title company - and in that case shame on you.
