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Manufactured Housing

Vital data some owners may overlook

By LEN BONIFIELD
Published August 6, 2005

Do you know where your HUD label and sticker are?

I'll bet most manufactured home owners have no idea that their home must have a label on each section as well as a Data Plate/Compliance Certificate.

The first thing a manufactured home appraiser will do is look for the HUD labels and the sticker. If they're not there, the appraisal must stop, said Neal Kaufman, president of West Florida operations for Compliant Appraisal Services, which operates in 17 counties.

"What I find in every case is that the manufactured home owner has no idea about what I'm looking for or its significance," Kaufman said. "Homes that have been re-sided are a typical case where the installer removes the old siding with the HUD labels and tosses them out with the old siding. Those missing HUD labels (metallic tags two inches by four inches) can never be replaced. However, their numbers can be re-certified by a letter from HUD, but that takes time and delays the sale or refinancing of the home."

More important is the Data Plate/Compliance Certificate. That is the sheet or sticker (8 inches by 11 inches) containing critical data: manufacturer, date of manufacture, model, serial number and HUD label numbers. "If this document is not present, there can be no appraisal and it may be very difficult or even impossible to replace the certificate," Kaufman said.

My 1995 Fleetwood has no data plate. When we took delivery on our home, a kitchen cabinet door was faulty, and we asked Fleetwood to replace it. When a worker replaced the door, he took away the old one - and with it the compliance sticker. We have all of the original sale papers, the titles, etc., which should be adequate, since they contain the serial numbers, sale date, construction date, etc., to verify the manufacturer and required dates.

Not everyone agrees with Kaufman that without the labels and certificate there can be no appraisal.

Dan Rinzema, president of the national appraisal company Datacomp Appraisal Service, said, "Our understanding (and practice) is that even without the data plate (on the inside of the home) or the HUD label (on the outside), an appraisal can be completed. Remember, an appraisal is nothing more than ascertaining the value of a home, and neither of those things (in and of themselves) has much to do with value."

However, there are bigger problems than the appraisal if those things are missing, Rinzema said. "Technically, if the HUD label is missing, the home is not certified for occupancy, and this, of course, can cause big problems. Also, if the data plate is missing, some banks will not finance the sale."

If you can find the serial number on your hitch frame and know the home's brand and approximate model year, especially if you have your title, local offices of the state Department of Motor Vehicles should be able to assist you, according to the FLorida Manufactured Housing Association.

There is a federal requirement (24 CFR Part 3280.6) that the serial number be stamped into the foremost cross member of each section. How many appraisers would be willing to remove skirting if necessary, crawl under the home to look for the serial number, then try to research backward to find the manufacturer, who may or may not be willing to re-create the data plate?

Kaufman says sellers of manufactured homes are remiss in not educating their buyers about the importance of these identifying tags and documents. He thinks manufacturers could do a better job of alerting consumers to not remove these identifying instruments.

Send comments or questions to Len Bonifield at elb@gate.net or fax to 863 853-8023, or phone (863) 858-1557. Please include your e-mail and mailing address. Because of the volume of mail and phone calls, he can't respond personally to every query. Bonifield is a manufactured-home resident and a past HOA president and former officer of the FMO District 1 board of directors.

[Last modified August 5, 2005, 09:51:05]