When you purchase a MHP with POH’s how do you recieve title to these? By a bill of sale or title (which is sometimes hard to do) seeing the the home is so old the ser# has been removed and the state will not issue a title without that.
InvestinMobiles, in South Carolina Mobile Homes are titled through the South Carolina Department Of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and have Vehicle Titles.Thus, in South Carolina at Closing you will need valid Mobile Home Titles to go with all your Park Owned Homes.When we closed on one of our MHPs, the Sellers (who were an Estate) did not have valid Mobile Home Titles. Thus, in order to Close on the MHP the Attorney created an Escrow for the Mobile Home Titles. We selected to give each Mobile Home a value and set aside a portion of money in Escrow for a specific amount of time until either the Seller delivered valid Mobile Home Titles or the time period was up.We could have just gone through the Abandoned Mobile Home process instead of insisting on receiving the valid Mobile Home Titles. However, the Abandoned Mobile Home process takes time and money.Since the Sales Price included these POHs, the Seller was either going to deliver valid Mobile Home Titles or compensate the Seller monetarily for not producing these valid Mobile Home Titles.Having the Seller set aside their money in Escrow is a huge motivating factor.We ended up receiving 6 of the 7 Valid Mobile Home Titles.We wish you the very best!
Thanks Kristin for that response. I guess Texas is different as the bill of sale is the accepted method of transferring POH in a sale of a MHP. I have found it difficult to impossible to find serial numbers that have been removed over the years to satisfy the state to obtain title.
In Texas, if you can obtain the label number you can usually look up the serial number on the TDHCA website. Or you can look up both if you have enough other information (name of owner, current location, make/model, year, etc). The label number is usually stamped on the back of the home and on the frame (unlike the serial number). If the home has no label number you will need to apply for a “seal” number to replace it, I believe. I’m not 100% sure about this though.
When I bought my park I received a number of info sheets on the tenants from the owner–there were several versions over the years, but luckily for the mobile home I needed the title on, there was a “registration number” on their info sheet and it was filled out. This ended up being the VIN # although it threw me off because it was just a 5 digit number. My secretary of state’s office was able to look it up for me, and also it happened to have been financed through the local small town bank, who also dug out their copy of the title for me. When I finally got access to this home the number was easily found on a label inside the home. I have the titles to two more homes and I don’t think I ever found the vin # on those. In Illinois, we are supposed to have a record of the tenant’s vehicles. The info sheets had this info, as well as names and birthdates of the people in the home (including kids), and the year, brand of the home, and size. If I ever have another home move in I am definitely requiring an information sheet like this and including the VIN of the home as required info.