# HAP-13 — A model state certification act **Rev:** 0.1 · August 2026 **Status:** Draft. Not reviewed by counsel in any state. Read the drafting notes before the text. **Share:** Public. Ships as `site/downloads/model-certification-act-r0.1.md`. **Register:** E-197, E-198, E-199, E-200, E-202, E-120, E-091, E-092 --- ## Why this document exists Section 301(c) of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act added 42 U.S.C. 5403(i). Every state must file a certification with the Secretary **not later than 11 July 2027** — two years where the legislature meets biennially — that its own laws subject a manufactured home built without a permanent chassis to the same treatment as one built on a chassis, *"including with respect to financing, title, insurance, manufacture, sale, taxes, transportation, installation"* (E-197). A state that does not file must **prohibit the manufacture, installation or sale** of the home (E-198). As of 17 August 2026 no model certification language has been published by anyone, and HUD's authority to issue model guidance under 42 U.S.C. 5408(3) has not been exercised. This is a draft filling that gap, published so it can be criticised rather than because it is finished. **It is not legal advice and it has not been reviewed by counsel in any jurisdiction.** Every state's manufactured-housing, titling, tax and lien provisions differ, and §7 below is a checklist rather than a promise of completeness. --- ## The drafting problem, stated plainly The certification looks like a formality and is not. A state has two routes to the same filing and they do not have the same consequence. **Route one — extend the definition.** Add the chassis-free home to whatever definition the state already has. This is what §5403(i)(2)(A) itself contemplates: an attestation that the state has amended *"the definition of 'manufactured home' in the laws and regulations of the State"* (E-199). Where that definition sits inside a motor-vehicle titling statute — and roughly three-quarters of states have written conversion statutes whose existence implies exactly that default (E-120) — the state certifies compliance and re-enacts the personal-property classification in fresh law. A classification held in place by federal silence since 1974 (E-091) becomes one a legislature affirmed in 2027. **Route two — default to real property.** Certify parity by classifying the permanently installed home as real property. **The wrinkle that decides the drafting, and it cuts against the obvious version of route two.** Parity under §5403(i)(1)(A)(ii) requires the chassis-free home to be subject to *the same* laws as the chassis home. A state that made only the chassis-free home real property, leaving the chassis home on a vehicle title, would have created a divergence — and arguably failed the certification it was trying to make. So the route that is both parity-compliant and out of chattel treats **both** homes the same way: real property on permanent installation, chassis or no chassis. That is a larger bill than the six-word amendment, and it is the only version this project can see that satisfies the statute and changes how the house is financed. **This reading is analysis, not verified law, and it is the single most important thing for counsel to check before anything below is filed.** --- ## The text > Bracketed terms are placeholders for the enacting state's own drafting conventions, > agency names and code citations. ### AN ACT relating to manufactured housing; conforming state law to the federal definition of a manufactured home; providing for classification of permanently installed manufactured homes as real property; and directing the certification required by 42 U.S.C. 5403(i). **Section 1. Short title.** This Act may be cited as the Manufactured Housing Parity and Certification Act. **Section 2. Definitions.** [Code section defining manufactured home] is amended to read: > "Manufactured home" means a structure that meets the definition in 42 U.S.C. 5402(6), > **built with or without a permanent chassis**, and bearing a certification label issued > under 42 U.S.C. 5403, including a label issued under 42 U.S.C. 5403(a)(7)(B) > distinguishing a manufactured home built without a permanent chassis. > "Chassis-free manufactured home" means a manufactured home built without a permanent > chassis. > "Permanently installed" means installed on a foundation system in compliance with > [state installation standards] and the federal installation standards at 24 CFR part > 3285, with the running gear, if any, removed. **Section 3. Federal label recognized.** A manufactured home bearing a certification label issued under 42 U.S.C. 5403, **including the distinct label required by 42 U.S.C. 5403(a)(7)(B)(i) and the data plate required by 42 U.S.C. 5403(a)(7)(B)(ii)**, is a manufactured home for all purposes of the laws of this state. No agency of this state may condition a permit, registration, titling, taxation, insurance or financing determination on the presence or absence of a permanent chassis. **Section 4. Parity.** Except as Section 5 provides for classification of all manufactured homes alike, a chassis-free manufactured home is subject to the same laws and regulations of this state as a manufactured home built on a permanent chassis, including with respect to financing, title, insurance, manufacture, sale, taxes, transportation and installation. **Section 5. Classification as real property.** (a) A manufactured home that is permanently installed on land is real property, whether or not it is built on a permanent chassis, and is assessed, conveyed, encumbered, insured and financed as real property. (b) On permanent installation the owner shall surrender the certificate of title or the manufacturer's certificate of origin to [titling agency], which shall cancel it and record the cancellation in the land records of the county in which the home is situated. [Titling agency] shall not issue a certificate of title for a manufactured home that is permanently installed. (c) A manufactured home that is not permanently installed remains personal property. (d) This section applies to a manufactured home permanently installed on or after the effective date of this Act. A home permanently installed before that date may be converted under [existing conversion statute], which is not repealed. (e) A security interest perfected before the effective date of this Act is not impaired. [Conforming amendment to state lien-perfection and recording provisions.] **Section 6. Certification.** (a) [Responsible agency] shall submit to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development the certification required by 42 U.S.C. 5403(i)(1)(A) not later than [date at least 60 days before 11 July 2027], and the annual recertification required by 42 U.S.C. 5403(i)(3) by the date the Secretary sets. (b) [Responsible agency] shall report to [the legislature] within 30 days of each submission, stating the provisions of state law relied on. (c) [Responsible agency] shall review each measure enacted after the effective date of this Act for its effect on the accuracy of the certification, and shall notify [the legislature] of any measure that would impair it. **Section 7. Conforming amendments.** [The enacting state must sweep, at minimum: the motor-vehicle title code; the manufactured-housing installation and licensing code; the property tax code, including assessment classification and exemption eligibility; the recording and lien-perfection provisions; the insurance code's definitions of a dwelling and of a motor vehicle; the sales, use and excise tax provisions; the residential landlord-tenant and manufactured-home community provisions; the building code adoption provisions; and any zoning enabling statute that names manufactured or mobile homes.] **Section 8. Effective date.** This Act takes effect [date sufficiently before 11 July 2027 to permit the certification under Section 6]. --- ## Drafting notes **What is verified.** Every quotation of federal law above was read in the codified text of 42 U.S.C. 5402 and 5403 and is carried in the register at E-197, E-198, E-199 and E-202. The three-quarters figure for conversion statutes is E-120, from a fifty-state review, and is the only state-practice claim this document rests on. **What is not verified, and matters.** 1. **The parity reading in §5** — that a state must move both classes together — is this project's analysis of §5403(i)(1)(A)(ii) and has no authority behind it. If parity is read narrowly, as requiring only that the chassis-free home not be treated *worse*, then a state could default only the chassis-free home to real property and §5 could be much smaller. That reading would be better for this argument and this document does not assume it. 2. **Whether the certification must precede or may follow the conforming amendments** is not addressed by the statute as read. §6(a) assumes the amendments come first. 3. **The Secretary's form.** §5403(i)(2) says the attestation shall be "in a form prescribed by the Secretary". No form has been prescribed, so §6 names no form. 4. **Nothing here addresses the construction standard.** A chassis-free home cannot be built until HUD issues standards under 42 U.S.C. 5403(a)(7), and that paragraph carries no deadline (E-201). A state may therefore certify in 2027 for a home that cannot be manufactured until later. That is an argument for filing on time, not for waiting. 5. **Nothing here makes the home financeable.** Both Enterprise selling guides still define an eligible manufactured home as one built on a permanent chassis (E-204), and no guidance says how the new federal label will be read (E-206). Real-property classification is necessary and not sufficient. **What would improve this draft, in order.** A read by counsel in one state with a conversion statute and one without. A comparison against the first two or three certifications actually filed. And the enumeration this document cannot supply: which legislatures meet biennially, and therefore which states have until 2028 (E-200). **How to cite it.** As a draft, by revision, with the date. If it is superseded by HUD guidance under 42 U.S.C. 5408(3), that guidance governs and this document should be read as what was available before it.