Wrong House

[David Carrick]

My husband and I ordered a manufactured home in Venice, Fl. to put on our lot in a 55+ community. It was discovered upon arriving the dimensions were not as ordered. We refused the home, but had paid for it in full....The seller left the wrong home on our property to be sold and removed. We just found out our new home has not been ordered because the seller claims she doesn't have the money until the wrong house is sold. Anybody have any insight to this problem??? We are ready to hire a lawyer at the price of $250.00 per hour

[David Oxhandler]

Dave -

A buy sell contract not only requires the buyer to pay buy the seller to deliver the goods contracted for. Did the seller contract to delivery on a specified date? The laws that would cover this vary from state to state.

It would be an excellent investment to spend one hour with the lawyer. Let him look at your sales contract and give you an educated opinion as to where you stand under your states laws.

[jgn]

The problem you face is recourse from the seller because if they don't have the financial strength to get the correct home ordered until the wrong one is sold they have very to settle any judgement. I am not sure what would compell anyone to fund the entire purchase up front but what happened is one of the trappings of that kind of transaction. Hindsight is 20/20 but FWIW and to help others before they make this mistake.
Always get an attorney before you sign anything, chaeck out your dealer as completely as your manufacturer, If it is a cash transaction make sure the money is kept in escrow until acceptance of the home and if the seller has to have that money to make the purchase find another seller who can afford to stay in business.
You need to get legal assistance to make sure the "wrong home" is attached until sold.

[rmurray]

You are lucky this transaction is in FL...You do need the attorney soon..If the worse case happens and the delaerr fails...FL has both a bond requirement and loss recovery fund...The other post here has some good advice...attach a lien on the wrong home so that you control the money when it is sold...Try calling the manufacturer for help...They will have more insight into the dealers financial affairs...

Good Luck...

[rmurray]

One more thing...you might want to contact the manufactured homeowners association for a referral to an attorney familier with manufactured housing...Not all attornies will be up to speed about the laws in the industry...

http://www.fmo.org/

[Barbara Carrick]

Thank you for your advise. My husband and I have retained a lawyer in Florida. Also we contacted the owner of the manufactured home, he is working with the seller. Outcome being, he has made a deal with the seller to attach a piece of her land and they are going to build our home. We are too trusting in people, as a result we are in this mess.Thanks again for your imput. We had checked on the seller with the local Better Bussiness Bureau, and there were no problems in her 6 years in bussiness. Go figure......

[Gary]

Wish there was a home lender forum here so we can get some input and advice from these professionals. A question I would put to them would be " Why aren't these m/h loans treated like normal site built homes?" A new construction loan is paid out in phases. As each phase is finished it gets inspected and approved. The builder can't move on to the next phase till then. Even after completion the home must be inspected for final payoff. Even an existing home must pass many inspections before the loan can be approved. I would like to see the lending community take a hands on approach to m/h loans and require complete delivery and setup inspections before the seller (whether its a dealer or private party) gets the money. Or maybe only pay it out in phases for a new home. After all its there money. This of course would exclude sales of "as is where is". This along with other suggestions I made in the MHRR forum would give the buyer protection from abuse and catastrophic expenses, and give them confidence in buying these homes. It could be that these homes are treated differently because they fall under the motor vehicle category. That may have been ok at one time but with so many m/h owners these days, the almost insurmountable problems that dealers and homeowners have to deal with warrant a change in requirements. How about it David, Chrissy, anybody?

[jgn]

Gary, a site built home takes three to six months to complete and therefore lends itself to payouts where a MH takes a very short time to build therefore several payouts are not feasable unless it is 25% when ordered 25% when complete 25% on delivery and the remainder on acceptance. What you are doing is keeping the dealers profit so it is in his interest to make sure everything goes as promised .If the money is held in escrow the seller knows the funds are available and should feel comfortable with this but most MH dealers do not like this arrangement because they don't have your money to float with and want it before the home is built. .

[unknown]

We had an up front land home package and then a phase package by lenders for a while in Texas, working at a dealership the phase package leave the dealer very open unless the customer had an interium sorce, which most of the time they did not, I heard many dealers had the improvements and home delivered only to have the customer walk out at closing ( i can not tell you why they walked out) but I knew many good dealers that tried it once and many who did not learn the first time tried it several times. So the option was there but not a good risk. The up front funding and closing worked almost the same way however as the improvements were done the finanace comapny would pay the dealer or contractor ( it was the dealers or the general contractors responsibility to make sure everything was completed) and once the home was on property and everything was completed you did not return for another close. The dealers would not receive money for the delivery, ac or what was remaining on the gp until the customer called and said the home was ok. The only fund paid was the actual improvements and floorplan or invoice on the home.

[Gary]

Thanks for your input, I like the 25/25/25/25 idea. And it sounds like its possible to negotiate these terms. But then you would have to find a dealer to agree to it. I just dont like the idea of the dealer having that much control. I know we all hate to see more regulations but some people simply have to be forced to do the right thing. I would like to see a list of lending institutions that offer these terms put on this site. Just thinking out loud but if more people started demanding these type of loans maybe dealers will have no choice but to agree to them. Like to see more input on this.