The Manufactured Housing Forums

After 7 months our new manufactured home is finally done, passed all County Inspections, the well has been inspected, the septic has been inspected and the soil has had the required treatments. The Certificate of Occupancy has been given by the County, and now the Mortgage Co is stating it must be inspected by an FHA Inspector. Does anyone know exactly what the FHA Inspector needs to inspect? If the County has approved everything, what does the FHA inspector need to inspect? The home is a Homes of Merit double wide. Aren’t they built to FHA specifications? What happens if it doesn't pass the FHA Inspection? I just have a fear something will go wrong. If the Inspection Doesn't pass for FHA, does this mean I will have to go back to the Dealer for them to fix any problems? The home has been sitting on our lot for over 3 ½ months, while the Dealer was doing the set up and hook ups; sometime weeks going by with nothing being done. Countless phone calls and visits to the dealer accomplished nothing. Can someone who has gone through this please let me know what the FHA Inspector will be looking for?
Thanks for the help.

A FHA inspector will not be inspecting the home...He will be inspecting the lot, set up, steps, driveway, landscaping....To make sure they meet the rigorous FHA standards...The FHA set up is far more rigorous than what the county will require...

Obviously the dealer has not dealt with FHA before...Most of us do not use inspectors but engineering firms who test the soil and design and inspect the foundation system while it is being put in...they take care to be sure the foundation meets the FHA specs...FHA listed inspectors turn down home a lot...If they do the mortgage company will not be able to close the loan...If your contract calls for a FHA set up..the dealer would still be responsible to retrofit the home to meet the requirements...

Inspectors will be looking at the steps..they must be permanently attached to the ground and the wood must not touch the soil...Should be in or on concrete....No running gear or hitches can be on the home..often they mean they must not be on the property at all..The driveway must be at least as nice as all drives in the area..If the neighbors have concrete..yours will have to be concrete...Some are sticklers for landscaping...There must be a certain number of trees in the yard..often they have required we grade and seed the front yard..Your dealer should be fully aware of all requirements...Most FHA inspectors will be looking carefully at the foundation..FHA specs are rigorous..Mostly underpinning will have to be masonry on perimeter footers..The piers will have to be monitored or firewalled on top of poured concrete footers...

You must have gotten your own lender...If the dealer was involved he would have already taken care of this step...All FHA mortgaged home have the same requirements....It is true inspectors all have slightly different ideas of the requirements...Our dealership uses mostly thew same engineer all the time so that we know exactly what he will expect...Surprises are no fun for anyone...

.Good Luck..let us know how it goes...

Thank you for you answer Mr. Murray, I guess now, I'm more nervous than I was before. We found this dealer on Homes of Merit website and assumed they were an up and up dealer. But I can assure you if I had known how they run their business; I would have used another dealer.

This was a home/property purchase. We had originally planned on using bank financing, however, the Dealer suggested we speak with their financial dept and they arranged the loan for us. Lower down payment, lower interest etc, so that's what we did. Unfortunately, we have zero confidence in this dealer after dealing with them for the past 7 months. The home was ordered at the time of the construction loan, and the building was done 7 weeks later, then it sat at the factory for over 9 weeks, waiting for the dealer to move it to our property. During that entire time, nothing was done on the property..... Weeks and weeks went by and repeated call and visits to the dealer were useless. They always had some excuse as to why nothing had even been started. (Like the week their installer had to go hunting). Meanwhile we were paying on a construction loan each month, (for the cost of the property). The construction loan stated the work would be done in 4 months, and now we are on our 4th extension of the construction loan.

The driveway is shell rock as are most in the area. The property is 2 1/2 acres with many pine trees, and as far as landscaping, the dealer has done nothing, no landscaping at all, unless you count the hand full of grass seed they threw around on top of the septic and drain field. This has mostly blown away. The air handler and the pump for the well are sitting on concrete, but the steps are just sitting on the ground, (they are fiberglass, so maybe that's ok), they are not attached to the home or the ground in any way. The pad for the home is shell rock, as are others in the area. The soil around and under the home has been treated, (as required by the county). The footers appear to be concrete blocks, not poured. The hitches, (at least one) is still sitting under the home, hidden by the skirting, where it was put after being detached, the other one was removed from the property.

The dealership's work crew put big ruts and holes in the driveway and all around the home, we had them all filled and leveled out. Why? Because the dealer said as far as they were concerned they were done. Rather than fight them any more and perhaps wait another 2-3 weeks we paid for this work ourselves. I understand that FHA wants to make sure everything is done correctly, and so do we, but this dealership has been so unorganized and difficult to deal with, I can just see the FHA Inspector finding a problem and it being another 2-3 months before we can close on the loan. And I can almost hear the dealership saying, oh was it supposed to be to FHA specs? Gosh! I must have missed that little detail. Meanwhile each month that goes by, waiting for them to correct the problems, I’ll be send out another payment for the construction loan seeing our saving depleting further and further, with no end in sight.

Well where are you located(state)? Because beleave it or not this will make a big difference on the inspection, even though the FHA guidelines are the same. We do home insections on all types of homes about 60% are Mobile Homes and I have guys from different parts and they see things a little different than I...anyway good luck!

I'm located in Florida, Hendry county to be exact. From what I can see most Mobile homes in the area appear to be set up the same way that ours is. At this point I just want this to be over. The waiting and delays are almost more than I can handle. Call it the fear of the unknown. Thanks for your input.

It seems you are saying the dealer has not got a draw yet...most construction loans pay in stages..the first will pay for the property and advance the dealer about 15% of his money..then the next draw will advance 10 to 15% when the foundation is in..Then the next will advance auto 50% of the home price to the dealer when the home is delivered to the site....The bank will withhold about 20% of the dealers money until thew home is complete...inspected by an FHA inspector and confirmed to be complete by the appraisal..Of course the dealer knew you were on an FHA loan since he arranged for the finance..Most dealers would push this process through as fast as possible to get all of his money..Generally all his profit is tied up in this draw...Most dealers do not pay sales folks until this step is done...usually the sales person is pushing completion to get his small check...FHA inspectors do seem to be different from inspector to inspector...All seem to read the regulations differently...Relax...you have at least gotten a good home and HOM will back it well...You might want to write HOM about this dealer...Feedback on dealers is the only way they know if the dealer is good...What has the loan folks said about the delays..Good Luck getting settled...

I was reading threw the postings and saw that on one of them Joni noted that one of the tounges was under the home, 2 months ago when I closed on this house the FHA inspector looked under the house to make sure the tounges was removed (witch they were) he told me that they are not even allowed on the property. I dont know how the state you live in is but it may be worthwhile to have them removed just as a precaution to save on closing time, mine would not let me close till the steel beems running under the house was welded to the poured walls foundation beems those inspectors can be picky. Just a thought. Kraig

Joni,
I read another response to your question....and boy was that incredibly involved....wow!
I have a mortgage co. in DE and we do several FHA transactions a year for our clients buying double wide (manufactured) homes.

The Lender we use for these FHA loans is very knowledgable and has educated us over the years. An FHA inspector is known as a Compliance Inspector. They subcontract their services to FHA. A Compliance inspector simply completes a Compliance Inspection form that says the project has been completed and comforms to FHA requirements. Given that the market has moved away from using FHA....because it is a pain in the **!....a compliance inspector should be able to view your property in a few days. FHA does have some quirks....like the steps must have railings....but most counties have that requirement. For the most part FHA's requirements are not much different from other lenders....or most counties for that matter. The foundation inspection that was mentioned in the other response I read is actually required to be done by a structural engineer....not the compliance inspector.

Why is this inspection needed if the home is already a HUD home?? Because FHA is a government agency....and their sole purpose is to overcomplicate a fairly simple issue. Also, all of these requirements give them a reason to exist. Listen to this. I actually spoke to FHA regarding the foundation inspection by a structural engineer. I didn't understand why my client had to pay $275 for an engineer to certify the foundation....when it passed the C of O inspection already. After listening to a bunch of hooey....the FHA employee said that FHA had their own guidelines on foundation requirements. I said to her "So in other words, FHA knows better than the manufacturers how the foundation is to be done?" I don't think she appreciated that and offered to mail me FHA's foundation requirments. I asked her if it would be easier to fax them. She said "Oh no hun, this book is an inch thick!" There you have it. Our hard earned tax payor dollars at work....reinventing the foundation wheel.

Anyway, the FHA inspection should not be a problem if your home passed the C of O inspection. Just another expense for you to absorb thanks to our friends at FHA!!!

Best of Luck...........

Boy are you right about complications...Unfortunately compliance inspectors all seem to read the regs differently..We have one in our area who told me when I asked..that he had inspected over 100 manufactured homes..and NEVER passed one on the first trip...Of course..I have not called him back...We always use an engineer...I wish we could get them as low a price as you mention..here $400 seems to be the going rate..There are tens of thousands of folks in HUD..that would be out of work if common sense was the accepted rule of thumb...

Close a bunch of loans...