Mobilehomes and manufactured housing: registration and titling documentation.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details on enforcement or penalties, leaving these aspects unclear.

Mobilehomes and Manufactured Housing: Electronic Signatures

This law allows people who own mobile homes or manufactured houses to use electronically verified signatures when releasing a security interest, instead of handwritten signatures.

What This Bill Does

• Requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to accept electronically verified signatures on documents submitted to release or satisfy a security interest by January 1, 2028.
• Defines an 'electronically verified signature' as one that meets specific requirements similar to those for handwritten signatures.
• Prohibits the department from requiring a handwritten signature when releasing or satisfying a security interest.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who own mobile homes or manufactured houses
• The Department of Housing and Community Development

Terms To Know

Electronically Verified Signature

A digital signature that meets specific requirements to be treated the same as a handwritten signature.

Security Interest

An interest in property given by one party (like an owner) to another party (like a lender) as security for a debt or obligation.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what happens if someone uses an invalid electronic signature.
• It is unclear how this change will affect existing manual signature requirements in other parts of the law.
• There are no details on enforcement or penalties for non-compliance with these new rules.

Official Summary Text

AB 2174, as amended, Johnson.
Mobilehomes and manufactured housing: registration and titling documentation.
Existing
law
law, the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980,
requires specified persons, including legal owners and junior lienholders of manufactured homes, mobilehomes, or commercial modulars, to execute and deliver prescribed documents to the Department of Housing and Community Development to create, assign, or release security interests and to effect changes to the permanent title record maintained by the department. Existing law requires the department, upon receipt of those documents and applicable fees, to amend its records and issue updated certificates or registration
documents,
documents
and provides remedies if a secured party fails to release its interest as required.
Existing law authorizes the use of a digital signature in any written communication with a public entity, as defined, in which a signature is required or used. Existing law provides that a digital signature shall have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature only if it embodies certain attributes, including, among other things, that it is under the sole control of the person using it.
This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2028, to accept
an electronically executed signature
a verified
signature executed electronically
on a document submitted to release or satisfy a security interest held by a legal owner pursuant to
these
the above-described
provisions
of the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980
and to treat that signature as having the same force and effect as an original signature.
The bill would define “verified signature executed electronically” as a digital signature that embodies all of the above-described attributes required to have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature.
The bill would prohibit the department from requiring submission of a
wet signature
for that purpose.
to release or satisfy a legal owner’s security interest pursuant to the above-described provisions of the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF