Damonte Law Blog

I would be shocked to find someone who has not heard the adage “you get what you pay for”. Yet despite that, the world is full of people who expect Charley’s Steak House  quality for McDonald’s price. With today’s economy, price shopping is key to staying within your budget — however, a lower price can often equate to lower quality.

Our office has handled, and continues to handle, many mobile home cooperative transfers. Prior to moving to Florida, I handled hundreds of residential transfers in New Hampshire. I was amazed to see my first Settlement Statement for a Florida mobile home cooperative. The costs seemed high for a transfer of such a small piece of property. However, I soon learned that because of the many moving parts associated with a mobile home cooperative transfer, the closings were very time consuming.

Unlike a standard residential closing where the transfer of property is limited to the real estate, a mobile home cooperative consists of three pieces of property that must be transferred separately – the mobile home, the share in the cooperative association and a real estate interest in the lot on which the mobile sits. The mobile home title itself is transferred at the local Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ office. The share is transferred either by the association or its transfer agent and involves cancelling the old share, issuing a new share and updating the corporate records to evidence the transfer. Finally, the real estate portion is transferred through the County Clerk’s office.

This is where the “caution” comes into my cautionary tale. When our office quotes a price to transfer a mobile home cooperative, we quote the price for us to transfer all three pieces of property.

What do I mean by this? Let me give you an example of a horror story that rivals that told in The Exorcist. I recently received a call from a mobile home cooperative owner who was selling his mobile home cooperative. When I quoted him the price, he was stunned and told me the attorney who handled the closing when he purchased the property charged hundreds of dollars less. As I was talking to him, I ran a search of his mobile home title and discovered that not only was the mobile home never transferred from the prior owner to him, but that it had a lien on it from the prior owner. The man was outraged.

As a courtesy, I reviewed his closing package from when he purchased the property and discovered that the reason why the attorney’s fee was so low was because he had only transferred the real estate, period. In the package, I found that after closing, the attorney had sent the buyers to the share transfer agent to handle that portion by themselves, which they did. As to the mobile home, the attorney had the buyer and seller sign a release saying that they were to transfer the mobile home between themselves, which they never did. As a result, the owner had to track down the seller and convince them to not only sign documents necessary to transfer the mobile home title, but contact their lender to get the lien released from the title.

The moral of the story is this — you have the right to close with whatever attorney or title company you wish. However, when price shopping always remember to ask the attorney or title company, “What am I getting for this price?”.

We often receive calls from buyers and sellers wanting to transfer their mobile home cooperative unit on just a “handshake deal”. Mobile home cooperatives consist of three pieces of property – the mobile home, the share in the cooperative association and a long-term leasehold interest in the lot on which the mobile sits.

In Florida, the leasehold interest is considered real property. Florida contract law requires that certain kinds of contracts be memorialized in a writing. One of those types of contracts is any contract for the transfer of an interest in real property. Before our office can complete any mobile home cooperative transfer, we must have a written contract setting forth the terms of the transaction between the buyer and seller. When it comes to Florida real property, the “handshake deal” is dead.

There are several options when it comes to preparation of the contract. If you have placed the property on the market with a realtor, the realtor will prepare the contract for you. Alternatively, if you do not have a realtor, our office can prepare the contract. Finally, the buyer and seller can prepare the contract themselves.

If the buyer and seller prepare the contract, at a minimum the contract should identify the buyer, the seller and the property (for a mobile  home cooperative, this means listing all three pieces — the mobile home, the share and the lot), it should set forth the purchase price, the deposit amount and the closing date, it should explain who is to pay what closing costs and it should be signed and dated by all sellers and all buyers.

Although buyers and sellers can save money by preparing the contract themselves, it should be done with caution as sales contracts are legally binding documents. This means the parties are bound to the terms in the contract.

What happens, however, when certain terms are not addressed in a contract? For example, buyer and seller prepare a contract. The contract calls for buyer to give seller a $2,000.00 deposit upon signing the contract, which the buyer does. However, the contract does not specify what happens to the deposit should one of the parties back out. Seller then decides not to close and buyer demands the deposit back. Who is entitled to the deposit?

Since the contract is silent as to the return of the deposit, if the parties cannot come to an agreement, then if buyer wants his deposit back he or she may need to file a lawsuit to have a judge determine who is entitled to the deposit, the cost and legal fees of which could easily exceed the $2,000.00 deposit amount.

Emergencies happen. Unfortunately, sometimes an emergency can leave you unable to speak for yourself. Of course, a call to 911 is the first step. But after the emergency services have left, what happens if your community association does not have current contact information for your next-of-kin? None of us want to be in this situation, but sometimes it happens. In order to avoid a delay in reaching your next-of-kin, be sure to update your emergency contact information with your association at least on an annual basis, and of course, anytime the information changes.