Hello, I am new to the community. I am up here in Jacksonville, Fl. I have my Florida Home Inspector License and CPI. I went through InterNachi’s How to Inspect Manufactured Homes course but it does not state if it meets any requirements for Florida or any other state. I contacted the Florida Department of Business Professionals, that regulate Home Inspectors, and they do not have any information on if I can or cannot legally perform such inspections. I do not even know if a buyer was trying to obtain VA, FHA or any other type of financing, that the inspection would be acceptable or not to the lenders. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Not familiar with Florida, but Manufactured home inspections are like brick and mortar homes. You just have to look at them differently as how the course instructs you to do.
Sure, if you are licensed by the state to inspect homes you can inspect a manufactured home. But you need to go through an engineer to provide the HUD foundation certification. It’s a completely different thing.
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True. Most lenders won’t lend money on a mobile if it’s not attached to a fixed foundation. Most I see are not and are cash sales. All that I have done that have a lending co. involved require certification of a fixed foundation.
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Florida has no additional or special requirements to inspect manufactured or mobile homes (only to install them).
Be advised you can’t inspect tie-downs without an engineering certification (you can collect the data for a qualified person to report on, however).
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Thank you for the reply. Have you inspected any manufactured/mobile homes?
Thank you for the reply. If I understand you correctly, you have completed manufactured/mobile home inspections for clients getting a loan, but had to have an engineer perform the inspection of how it was secured to a foundation? It sounds like those particular client had units that were secured to a foundation which, in the area I live in, most are not and just have the tie downs including new manufactured homes. For these, it appears that it would mostly be a purchase without a lender then in Florida?
I have inspected many mobiles and most all, l know the financing on them. I note whether they appear to be on a permanent foundation or not. Easy to recognize, but if not, refer to an foundation engineer to certify.
Thousands of them…
I usually do 10+ / week here in Florida and also work with a structural engineer for the engineering certs. For a basic inspection I will comment on the condition of the anchors and tie-downs as far as corrosion or if they are no longer connected. I will also comment on piers that are not in contact or have been displaced. There is a comment in each report explaining that this is not a full evaluation of these components and that would require a structural engineer. Most of the ones I inspect are cash deals that are in a park where they have a land lease. These are not considered real property and would never require an engineering cert. unless they were actually taking out a mortgage. You are able to perform the inspection with a home inspector license, just be aware that although there are many similarities to a residential home there are also some differences that will become apparent.
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Well said, & exactly correct.