Expert: Dick Dennis - 9/17/2008

Question
Remember the frustration in Princess Leia's voice when she said, "Help me Obi Wan Kenobe, you're my only hope?"  Well, I am way past that level of frustration.  I have a mortgage on a double wide mobile home in a mobile home park.  Not surprisingly, I am upside down in my mortgage.  After three years of trying to sell this house (while it sat unoccupied), I finally have a buyer for it.  I'm stuck in a really bad loop that I think it not exactly legal, at least it can't be considered "fair business practices."

It's fairly standard that I can only sell to someone who has been approved to live in the mobile home park.  However, part of the approval process seems to be me providing documentation that I have the legal right to sell the house.  OK, so that sounds reasonable.  But when I ask what kind of document fills that need, my mobile home park says they need a document from my mortgage company stating that they are aware that I am selling this house to the third party.  

My mortgage company couldn't care less about the third party.  As far as they are concerned, their business is between me and them.  I've sent the mobile home park office all kinds of documentation proving the pay-off process and that I have a loan with this mortgage company.  But they tell me that I don't have the legal right to sell this home to the third party.  

I tried to get a closing attorney to do a "closing" for me.  But since there is no actual land being exchanged, they can't do anything for me.  I tried to get my personal bank to set up some kind of escrow account from which the mortgage company could be paid, but they won't get involved.  

I can't find anyone to help me and I know that the mobile home park is making this more difficult than it has to be.  It should just be that the buyer and I send in the pay-off money.  The titles come to me 30 days later and then the buyer and I go to the DMV to transfer the titles into her name.  

But I can't do any of that until the mobile home park approves the application which they won't do until the home is paid off.  Who can I call to get this resolved?

Answer
When you bought the mobile home, Meredith, you received a document of some kind saying to whom the seller of that home was selling it to. They put your name on it, right? You therefore have REGISTERED TITLE, like your car. You do not have LEGAL TITLE. That is the mortgage holder, again like your car. But in any case YOU DO have the right to sell it to anyone you choose. That's where an attorney comes into the picture. What you have here is a problem for an attorney to solve. It would seem to me you are entitled to see the documents that you received from the Park saying that you do NOT have the right to sell the mobile home without their approval. Again, that is where the attorney comes in. Start with an attorney who is familiar with the wherewithalls of mobile homes and parks. Technically, this is NOT real estate, even though real estate agents are licensed to sell them. I do wish you well.

Dick Dennis