Document One: The 433A, or Its Absence
HCD Form 433A, recorded at the county recorder's office, is what converted a manufactured home into real property. A preliminary title report should reveal whether one was recorded.
If it is there, the home is a fixture on the land, taxed like a site-built house and transferred by deed. If it is not, the home is personal property with a title issued and tracked by HCD, and the sale involves two transfers rather than one.
What If the Home Is Site Built?
Document Two: The Title Report, for the Land
The same report shows whether the parcel carries a Williamson Act contract. Contracts run with the land and bind all successors in interest, so a buyer takes it on.
Where one exists, the further questions are whether it is a standard contract or a Farmland Security Zone contract, and whether any notice of nonrenewal has already been filed and recorded. The county answers both.
Does a Contract Stop a Sale?
The Third Thing, If Document One Is Missing
An HCD title search, through the Registration and Titling Program. It shows the registered owner and any recorded legal owner or junior lienholder.
This is the only place a lien against the home appears. A clean county search says nothing about it, because the home is not part of the county record. Where a search shows an interest, evidence that it has been dealt with is needed before a transfer.
And the tax clearance certificate. HCD withholds registration or transfer until the applicant presents a tax clearance certificate, or a conditional one, from the tax collector of the county where the home is located.
What We Do With Your Address
The county parcel record. First, for the jurisdiction, the acreage and how the property is assessed.
The title position. Whether a 433A appears and whether a contract appears.
The structure. Whether the framing survived, which decides the repair-or-rebuild question.
Local sale evidence. What the property would be worth put right, on the actual street or road.
What Comes Back
A written figure with each line visible: finished value, cost of the work, carrying cost and margin. Where the title or contract position is unresolved, the allowance we have made for it is a stated line rather than folded invisibly into a lower number, so a clean answer can be held against it.
What If a Listing Beats Us?
What Never Happens
No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the site, commission a report or repair anything first. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party. And nothing is removed from the property before closing, including a destroyed manufactured unit, because a titled home still has a title record and possibly a lienholder attached to it.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is usually a few days. Closing depends on which transfers are involved; an HCD transfer takes longer than a deed. The insurance claim does not have to be settled first.
Do I Need to Be in California?
No. Out-of-state owners are common on inherited valley property and remote closing is routine.
I Cannot Find Any Paperwork at All.
Normal, and recoverable. A title report and an HCD title search reconstruct most of it.