Ocala Mobile Home Leveling Checking a Mobile Home Installer's License in Florida
Before anyone sets a jack under your home in Ocala, spend five minutes confirming their license. It costs nothing. Florida issues mobile home installer licenses through the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, by way of its Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction, and one look at the state’s site or one phone call settles the question.
Below: the steps for checking, what the license actually covers, and the documents worth asking for. The same steps apply to us as to any other company you call.
Four checks, in this order
- Get the number in writing. On the quote, by email or by text. A spoken number is not enough, and neither is a snapshot of a card.
- Look it up with the state. Use flhsmv.gov or phone the Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction, and ask whether the license is current. Lapsed licenses turn up far more often than fake ones.
- Get the insurance certificate itself. A license is not insurance and insurance is not a license; you want both, and the certificate should show the policy dates.
- Ask who pays if a pier cracks drywall. Good contractors answer with the name of their insurer. Others steer the conversation somewhere else.
What falls under the license
Most people assume the license is about trucking homes from one lot to another, and that a relevel is handyman territory. That assumption is wrong. Installation means the work done to a home where it sits: blocking, leveling and tie-downs, along with setting the home to begin with. Lifting the frame means lifting everything the frame holds up, which is why the state regulates the people who do it.
The standards themselves live in the installation rules of the Florida Administrative Code: footing size, pier spacing, blocking and anchoring all trace back there. Anchoring follows the HUD wind zone. Marion County is inland, but it still sits in Wind Zone II, the 100 mph zone, and a home set before the 1994 standards was tied down under a lighter set of rules than the current one. Here the ground matters too: Marion’s sandy soils and karst limestone are part of why piers settle, so the checks above are worth doing before the readings say a relevel is due.
Why a contractor publishes this
We level, block and tie down homes across Ocala and Marion County, and we would rather you checked us, or anyone else, than took a quote on faith. Ask us for the number the same way you would ask anyone. People who verify end up with work that stays level, and one cheap job by a crew nobody can track down later does more damage to this trade than any competitor.
For the cost side before the credentials side, the pricing page has the full tables, and the cost calculator gives a range for your home with no email required.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there really a state license for mobile home installers in Florida?
There is. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles issues it through the Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction. This is a license the state grants, not a membership card from a trade group and not an optional certificate, and the work done to a home already sitting on its lot is covered by it.
What is the quickest way to verify a license?
Get the number in writing before anything else; a real installer gives it without a pause. Then take that number to the Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction at flhsmv.gov and ask whether it is active today, not just whether it was ever issued. A company that offers a name and a cell number but stalls on the license number has answered the question for you.
What does an installer have to do to get and keep the license?
The state requires an approved training course and a passed examination before it issues the license. After that the license renews every year, and the installer has to keep a performance bond and liability insurance in place. The work is meant to follow Florida's installation standards in the Florida Administrative Code, the rules that set out piers, blocking and anchoring.
A cheaper bid says a relevel doesn't need a license. True?
No. Setting a manufactured home, blocking it, leveling it and tying it down all count as installation work, and the state regulates that work. There is also the plain physical risk: for part of a relevel a house weighing many thousands of pounds rests on jacks. If the person under it carries no license and no insurance, the only thing standing behind the job is their good intentions.
What paperwork should be in my hands before anyone lifts the home?
Four items: the installer's Florida license number, a current certificate of liability insurance, a written quote that lists the scope instead of a number said out loud, and the readings taken at each pier during the level check. A crew that balks at any of the four has told you what you needed to know.
Does a relevel in Marion County need a permit?
It depends on the scope, and the rules are local. Marion County Building Safety lists mobile home installation work among the projects that need a permit, and its application asks for the installer's state license number, so call them about your own job instead of relying on any contractor's say-so, ours included. Anyone who discourages you from calling is giving you a reason to keep looking.