Mobile Home and Manufactured Home Title Bonds

States that bond manufactured homes

Alabama ($50,000 for a home under 10 model years, $25,000 at 10 and over, on its fixed schedule), Arizona (Form 40-1003, a dedicated mobile home application), Georgia (MV-46 covers both vehicles and mobile homes), Illinois (mobile and manufactured homes, with licensed real estate agents accepted as appraisers), Mississippi (manufactured and mobile homes on Form 78-016), Alaska (Form 870, 1.5× appraised value, three-year non-cancelable), Colorado (the county assessor's actual value, with homes 25 years and older exempt on DR 2463), Tennessee and Utah (unaffixed homes only), and Arkansas (mobile homes under its bonded title regulation). Minnesota handles manufactured homes under a separate process, and Florida excludes mobile homes from the vehicle bonded title procedure and sends them to its own procedure TL-07.

Affixed or not

Once a manufactured home is permanently attached to land the owner holds, most states retire the title and treat the home as real property; from then on ownership problems are real estate problems, cured by deed, affidavit of affixture or a quiet title action, not a vehicle bond. Tennessee and Utah say so expressly: only an unaffixed home can be bonded. If the home is on rented land or on blocks, it is still titled property and the bond route is open.

Valuation

Price guides are poor for manufactured homes, so states fall back on the county assessor (Colorado), a licensed dealer or real estate appraiser (Illinois, Alaska), or the DMV's own figure. North Carolina uses the higher of two dealer appraisals for mobile homes not in its Value Schedule. Because home values run higher than car values, these bonds often cross the $25,000 line and go to judgment underwriting with a personal financial statement.

Paperwork that is specific to homes

• The HUD label number and the data plate serial number stand in for the VIN; Kansas and South Carolina both require a county tax letter for a home without a serial number.
• Property tax clearance from the county is required in South Carolina (seven years of tax or insurance records) and is common elsewhere.
• A park or landowner statement confirming where the home sits is frequently requested.

Cost

A $30,000 home in a 1.5× state needs a $45,000 bond, above the instant-issue ceiling, and is quoted by an underwriter at the same $20 per $1,000 for a clean file. A $12,000 older home needs $18,000 of bond and costs $445.00 online.

Frequently asked

Primary sources

Related guides

Written and reviewed by C. Constantin Poindexter, MA, JD, CPCU, AFSB, ASLI, ARe, AINS, AIS, CPLP, founder of Surety One, Inc. and CEO of Janus Assurance Re, with more than thirty years of surety and reinsurance underwriting experience. Author of The Contractor's Guide to Surety Bonds. Reflects state law and DMV practice as of November 5, 2026. More about the author →