To: Elizabeth Cocke, Director
Manufactured Housing and Standards Division
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 Seventh Street S.W. Room 9152
Washington D.C., 20410-8000
Dear Ms. Cocke;
Your letter, dated August 21, 2000, requesting comments regarding on-site completion, creates questions that must be answered before responding to part or all but one of your questions. The reason for this is the following statement in your letter.
HUD would consider continuing to allow this type of work to be finalized at the home site, as an extension of the siting process,
We are unaware of the Departments "siting process," nor can we find any reference in the Act, the standards, or the regulations to this "siting process." Could the Department please define "the siting process"?
Without this information, any responses received from the public cannot be addressed from an informed position, and would be at best, speculative. It could be possible that certain organizations, referenced in your letter are privileged to information from the Department concerning this "siting process" or that the publication of this information is simply an oversight by the Department. If this information is not being made available, equally to the public, then this would bring into question the intent of you letter, since the public was not being given equal consideration by the Department. Until the frequently used term in your letter, "siting process" is adequately defined by the Department, we find it an exercise in futility to attempt to respond to the questions posed by the Department, with the following exception.
(5) Should we define protections for the consumer who has entered into an arrangement to purchase a manufactured home that is to be completed to standards on-site?
This was done by Congress, for the Department in 1974. 5409 (a), Prohibited Acts, states that no home may be offered for sale, lease, for sale, lease, sell, offer for sale or lease to the first purchaser, unless the home complies with all of the FMHCSS. In addition to this prohibition against the sale of a manufactured home to the first purchaser, which does not comply with all FMHCSS, the following definition defines who is responsible to the first purchaser for the homes compliance with the FMHCSS, and should clarify what HUD's role is in assuring the first purchaser a home that complies with the FMHC&SafetyS.
42 USC 5403(8) ''manufactured home safety'' means the performance of a manufactured home in such a manner that the public is protected against any unreasonable risk of the occurrence of accidents due to the design or construction of such manufactured home, or any unreasonable risk of death or injury to the user or to the public if such accidents do occur;
The two key words in this definition are "performance" and "user." We are perplexed that the Department seems to be unable to comprehend when the "user" is affected by the "performance" of a manufactured home. To clarify this, the user is not affected by the "performance" of a manufactured home until they have become the "user" of the product.
The definition goes on to state that the home should perform in a manner that the public is protected against "any" (emphasis added) unreasonable risk of the occurrence of accidents due to the design or construction of a manufactured home. This makes it inescapable, that the manufacturers are responsible to the first purchaser (user) for the performance of their product and it is definitively and legally impossible for the first purchaser (user) to be the dealer, retailer, or distributor. It is HUD's responsibility, as it always has been, to assure through uniform inspection and enforcement of the FMHCSS that the manufacturer is providing products to the first purchaser that are safe and durable to use, and that these products perform as certified by the manufacturer. It is unreasonable for anyone to believe that the user will occupy a home, sitting on rubber tires at the manufacturer's agent-dealer lot, and that the home at this point would not pose an unreasonable risk of injury or death the user.
Thank you,
Debra Chapman, Foundation of Manufactured Home Owners
John Taylor, "The American Internet Society of Manufactured Homeowners"