Modular Home Payment Terms

Modular manufacturers prefer to be paid cash on delivery (COD), and many only accept these modular home payment terms. But most modular home lenders prefer to make the final payment after the home is set on the foundation. The way most manufacturers and lenders reconciled their conflict is by using an “assignment-of-funds” procedure that legally commits the lender to paying for the home after the modules are set on the foundation.

What Can Happen If Your Lender Won’t Accept the Modular Home Payment Terms

When a customer selects a lender we haven’t worked with before, we contact it immediately after the home is ordered to ensure the lender’s modular home payment terms includes our assignment-of-funds procedure. It seems that every year one of our customers completes their application, gets approved for their loan, and is ready to close before we all realize that the lender will not follow the procedure. This is in spite of the fact that we send the lender and customer a copy of the assignment-of-funds letter soon after the customer orders their home. Even our follow-up phone call to the loan officer to review the procedure doesn’t prevent the problem. We’ve found that some loan officers say yes to our procedure without first running it by their manager. So we now ask the officer to discuss it with whoever is empowered to make the decision.

Sounds simple, right? Well, we once ran into a problem just before the closing when the lender’s manager was overridden by its attorney. Not even giving the lender the names of the many other lenders in the area that were comfortable with the procedure was enough to change its mind. My customers had to start over at another lender, which caused them to fall almost two months behind schedule.

Make Sure the Lender’s Attorney Accepts the Modular Home Payment Terms

Perhaps the lesson to learn from this is to make sure that the lender’s attorney is on board with the assignment-of-funds procedure. But another lesson is that no matter how vigilant you are, you still may be hit with a frustrating surprise. My best advice, if this happens to you, is to follow the example of my customers, who to their credit were able to hold onto their patience and good humor even though they lost six weeks applying with another lender.
For more information about modular home payment terms, see Financing a Modular Home in my book The Modular Home.