When looking to obtain mobile home park approval for a mobile home park in Sarasota, what will you need to provide them?
We here at The Home Dealer have a company policy where we will not sell a mobile home in a mobile home park to anyone prior to them obtaining and providing us their park approval.
But why do we do this?
As registered mobile home brokers in the State of Florida, we want to make sure that all Buyers are purchasing a clean, safe, and affordable property that they can call home for years if they choose to do so.
Part of providing this to our clients is to first make sure they are legally allowed to own the home that they live in!
Each mobile home park will have its own requirements for park approval, but usually, they are all about the same.
Each park has its own way of going about the actual approval process. Usually, every park will require each person that is going through to be approved to fill out a written application. Along with the application the applicant will need to provide a photo ID, pay a nominal application fee, and agree to have their background checked by the park. If you or your applicant friend does not have a current driver’s license that is okay as usual, a state-issued photo ID card or a passport will do the trick.
The reason is simple: if the Buyer is not park-approved prior to purchasing the mobile home through us as a licensed mobile home broker then we will not be able to close on the home.
The reason for this is that, as licensed mobile home brokers with the state of Florida, we are required to make sure that all parties who are looking at becoming residents within the mobile home park they are buying their home in have passed the approval process and are allowed to become residents within the mobile home park.
Many times, folks will skip this step and just assume that they can buy and move into any mobile home in any mobile home park in the Sarasota area without a second thought.
The park will need a copy of your driver’s license or a state ID card and will run a background check, usually a credit check, and in some instances an eviction check on all previous rental history.
Most parks charge a minimal fee for this service as well, but due to COVID, we have seen many parks waive this fee for the application.
Most parks will also have a paper application that is required to be filled out and on file which the park will use to judge if you are approved or not as a resident in the park.
Sarasota mobile home
Each park manager has their own approval system and works with their own sense of urgency, but it would be reasonable to think that if you have everything that is asked of you, you should hear an update on your approval notification within a few business days.
What we have seen is that if you are an out-of-state or out-of-country resident, then sometimes it will take a few additional days to obtain your approval from the park. Although I am not sure why this is, it does seem to always take a few additional days for those Buyers to get approval.
There is no universal credit score that is needed, to my knowledge, as everything on your park application is weighed pretty evenly in order to determine your park approval status.
One of the only aspects that I have personally seen that may cause an immediate issue with approvals is if the individual who is applying for residency does not meet the needed age for the park.
Many parks in the Sarasota area are age-restricted, requiring certain ages of those living in the park, to live there. If the potential resident does not meet the age requirement this could immediately cause a problem.
If the Buyer is not park approved prior to the closing and tries to obtain approval after buying the home and gets denied residency then all of a sudden this Buyer owns a home that they are unable to live in!
When this happens one of two things may happen:
The Buyer may be asked to move their home.
The Buyer is told they are unable to live in their home and will need to have another person live in the property.
In the first situation above, if the Buyer is asked to move their home this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. The reason for this is that, in Florida, a mobile home mover will not be able to obtain a moving permit on a mobile home if it is older than 20 years of age.
In the second situation, many mobile home parks in the greater Sarasota Florida area do not allow for a mobile home to be lived in by anyone other than the owner of the property.
In each situation, you can quickly see how the Buyer of the mobile home can get into a sticky situation very quickly if they are not approved by the mobile home park prior to purchasing their mobile home.
The key for you to know here is in order to purchase a home, make sure you are approved before closing on the property.
In order to get the park approved, make sure you contact the park and get them everything you need in order to make the approval process swift and easy for everyone involved.
If you don’t do this, expect quite a few delays and additional headaches!
This is Mark Kaiser with The Mobile Home Dealer, and we help mobile home Buyers and Sellers get to a better place in life.
See Also:
- Are You Able To Get Financing When Buying A Sarasota Mobile Home?
- Should You Try And Rent Your Sarasota Mobile Home When Selling?
- Will Sarasota Mobile Home Lot Rent Stay The Same?
- How Can A Mobile Home Dealer Help Sell Your Sarasota Home?
- How Did Sarasota Mobile Homes Sell In 2020?