Manufactured Home Loan Documents: What to Review Before You Sign
The signing appointment is the last point at which an error in a manufactured home loan document is cheap to fix, and the documents are long enough that the errors hide. Check four things, in order: that every name and the home’s identity are right, that the money matches the written terms you were given earlier, that the payment instructions are clear, and that anything different from what you expected has been explained.
Do it before the appointment if the documents are available, and do it at the table if they are not.
How to compare offers before you chose this loan is in comparing loan offers beyond the rate. This article is about the final documents.
Which documents you will see depends on how the loan is secured
A loan secured by real property, such as a home and land financed together, generally uses the federal Loan Estimate at application and the Closing Disclosure before signing, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Closing Disclosure guide walks through that form page by page. A home-only loan on a home held as personal property generally falls outside that rule and uses federal Truth in Lending disclosures, the promissory note, the security agreement and the escrow settlement statement instead.
Ask your specialist which set applies to your loan and when the documents can be seen. The checks below work on either set. Why the classification changes the loan explains the difference between the two kinds of collateral.
Check the people and the home first
Errors here are the ones that cause trouble years later, when the title record and the loan record do not agree.
Then check the money against what you were told
Put the final documents beside the written estimate you were given earlier and compare line by line.
Money items to compare with the earlier written terms
| Item | What to compare |
|---|---|
| Loan amount | Matches the price less your down payment, plus any fees you agreed to finance |
| Rate, and whether it is fixed | Matches the written offer or the lock confirmation |
| Monthly payment | The same figure, and the same contents: principal and interest only, or taxes and insurance too |
| Fees | Each fee against the estimate; new fees and larger fees explained |
| Prepaid items | Interest to the first payment, insurance premium, tax or fee proration, recalculated to the funding date |
| Seller credit | The amount you negotiated, shown as a credit |
| Deposit | Your earnest money shown as a credit |
| Cash to close | The figure you were told to bring, or the difference explained |
| Any charge for paying off early | Present or absent as you were told |
Some differences are legitimate. A prepaid interest figure changes with the funding date; a fee that was an estimate becomes an actual. Others are errors. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau puts the rule plainly: if something looks different from what you expected, ask why. What each cost is and who it is paid to is in closing costs beyond the down payment.
Check the payment instructions
The documents tell you when the first payment is due, how much it is, and where it goes. Two things to do with them.
- Confirm them by phone, with your loan specialist, at a number you already have, before you set up any payment. Do the same with any wire instructions escrow gives you for your closing funds, because instructions sent by email are the ones fraud imitates. Protecting your closing funds from wire fraud has the verification routine.
- Note who will service the loan. The company you pay may not be the company that made the loan, and the documents or a later notice will say so. Keep the notice with the loan documents.
Signing day
At the appointment
- Bring your identification for every borrower, in the name on the documents.
- Read the first page of each document for names, the home and the lender before signing anything.
- Compare the money pages with your earlier estimate, and ask about every difference.
- Ask what each document is before you sign it. The notary or escrow officer can tell you what it is, though not whether to sign it.
- Sign and initial where marked, and nowhere else.
- Take your copies
Signing is not funding. The lender reviews the signed documents, funds escrow when every condition is cleared, and escrow releases the keys under the instructions you and the seller agreed. The gap between signing and keys, and who to ask about it, is in conditional approval and what still needs to happen. All financing is subject to credit approval.
