What Do You Do When Your Park Has Less Skirting Than A Men's Store

Nothing is uglier than a mobile home without skirting. Even a brand new, top-of-the-line mobile home with a shingles roof and vinyl siding looks like junk in the absence of nice vinyl skirting to hide all the tie-downs and concrete blocks and pipes.

So what do you do when the mobile home park you've bought has virtually no skirting on the homes? The first question to ask is what kind of finances do your tenants have? If you are like me, they live pretty much hand to mouth. So what do you do?

You don't have a lot of choices. You can't afford to kick all of your tenants out, and so threatening to kick them out if they don't skirt their house is a bad bluff. You also can't leave the skirts off since it will scare aware new residents and will keep you from getting a good loan or making a good sale down the road.

Here's the solution, send a letter stating that effective immediately every home must have a skirt, but want to organize, to have done all the work and then Bill is a lessee, split into six installments of $________ per month. Then the project contractors to offer more and then start the project.

But if the capital for installation on socket connectors for each house? Forty houses $ 40,000 to $ 1,000 each requires capital. If you're more modest budget, it is necessary for the tenant, which set at least at the levels necessary to install and skirtsthen you will need to think creatively. I would be more flexible than to demand only new, vinyl skirting. I have seen great skirting jobs done with metal or fiberglass (see through roof panels for sheds) or even plywood - the important thing is that they paint it to match the house. Offer to donate the materials if they will install and paint it. Even if they are lousy carpenters, anything looks better than no skirting. And what if you have only a little money? Then start out with the most visible houses first or you can just do the skirting on the two sides of the home that are seen when driving though and pass on the rest for now. Those two sides are the front nearest the street (about 14' to 16') and the side seen most frequently from the street based on normal traffic flow. Or you can do just the front half of either or both sides. The point is to hide the ugly part of the home from the street, so that it does not turn off prospective tenants, banks or anyone else, while buying you time to complete the project.

One important point I can't emphasize enough is the enormous impact of paint. Even the ugliest skirting in the world, like a hybrid of old pieces of plywood, looks acceptable if it is painted to match the color of the trailer. Sure, new vinyl is your best option. But is it worth the extra cost? In many parks that have high density, you can't even see 75% of the skirting anyway.

The important thing is to get something up fast to block the ugly underside of the mobile home. This one action will make you thousands in immediate re-sale value and new move-ins.

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Finding Park Home Insurance

Most home insurance policies will not cover a park home or residential lodge due to them being a non-permanent structure without foundations. You'll need to shop around for a specialist park home insurance provider that can cover your structure as well as your belongings.

As park homes and lodges are not permanent, it is possible to move homes to and from the site. If your home is damaged in a fire or flood, you would need to make sure that your insurance company will cover the cost of removing the old home and any debris as well as re-siting your new home on the park under the guidance of your park manager.

Look for policies with benefits such as 'New for Old' cover. This means the insurer will replace your home and contents with new should they be damaged beyond economical repair or stolen from the home. A park home specialist will replace a damaged home with full co-operation of the park owner.

Public liability cover may not be the first thing you look for in an insurance policy, but your park owner may specify a minimum level of cover for public liability such as £2 million or even £5 million.

Check whether legal cover is standard on the policy or whether you need to add this as an extra. Legal cover will cover the cost of pursuing civil and personal injury claims and may stretch to employment matters or consumer issues.

One of the major benefits of being retired is all the free time you have to spend and the travelling that this allows you to do. If you plan to spend long periods away from your park home, check your insurance policy covers you for leaving the home unoccupied and for what period. A standard home insurance policy may only cover your home if left unoccupied for up to 28 consecutive days. Your park home insurance should be more flexible and allow you to leave your park unoccupied for several weeks or even months at a time. But be aware of certain conditions when leaving your home unoccupied such as steps to prevent frost damage to pipes.

As with any insurance policy, it pays to shop around and compare benefits and features as well as premium as the cheapest quote may not always give you the desired level of cover.