Manufactured and Mobile Homes in Probate Court: Home or Vehicle?

You might know, or at least have some idea, how a car passes to others in probate court. You may also have some idea how real property like a home, passes to beneficiaries in probate court. But what about a manufactured home, or what is sometimes called a “mobile home?”

Both cars and homes play by different rules in the law, and in probate court. So how does probate law treat these manufactured or mobile homes?

Owning the Land

One big distinction is whether the mobile home owner actually owns the land under the manufactured home.

If the answer is yes, then the property is treated as real property and will pass with, and have all the protections of, real property. These owners often get a decal, called an RP decal, which tells the government and the world that the owner treats the property as a home.

Here, on death, the property would pass the same way that any home would pass.

Not Owning the Land

If the owner does not own the land beneath the manufactured home, the home will usually be titled through agencies like the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. There will be a title, just as there is for a vehicle.

Note that in many mobile home parks, owners technically own their manufactured home, but rent the land underneath from the community. The land is leased, and thus owned, by someone else, meaning the home cannot be actual real property–it must be more like a car or other personal property. Although perhaps not physically possible, legally, the home (and rights to it) can be “separated” from the land.

It does happen that the owner owns the land underneath the home, but has not yet applied for an RP decal. In that case, the property is treated as personal property, not real property, until and unless the RP decal is issued.

Permission From The Community

Where the manufactured home is personal property (that is, the owner doesn’t own the land underneath, but rents it from the community or some other body), there can be probate issues that arise, because transferring the manufactured home isn’t the only issue–you still have to get the beneficiaries that inherit the manufactured home, to be able to lease the land underneath the way the deceased prior owner was doing.

That can create its own issues, if the community renting the land has restrictions–most commonly, age restrictions, for example, 55 or 65 – and older communities.

Remember that before you deal with any of these issues, you need to have an open estate, and a personal representative for the estate; communities or the State, won’t just work with you in transferring title or ownership, in the absence of probate court documentation of authority and the right to transfer the property.

Mobile or manufactured home in probate court or in your estate plan? Call the West Palm Beach probate law attorneys at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today.

Source:

floridarevenue.com/property/Documents/dr402.pdf