What information do I need to sell a mobile home park in Tennessee?

Two different lists

There is a difference between the information a buyer needs to close and the information a buyer needs to have an intelligent first conversation. Confusing the two is the single most common reason a Tennessee park owner postpones a sale for a year — sometimes for good.

The long list below is what a sophisticated park buyer commonly works through during due diligence. Think of it as a map of where a transaction eventually goes, not a gate you have to pass through today.

The full due-diligence list

• Current rent roll, even a handwritten one
• Total number of pads
• Occupied and vacant pads
• Lot rents by site, including any legacy or family rates
• Park-owned homes and their condition
• Tenant-owned homes
• Utility bills for the last twelve months
• Water source and billing method
• Sewer, septic, or lagoon information and any permits
• Property tax statements
• Insurance declarations and loss history
• Recent repairs and what they cost
• Major infrastructure history — lines, roads, electrical, treatment
• Leases or the absence of them
• Park rules and regulations
• Survey, if one exists
• Title information, deeds, and any easements
• Permits and zoning documentation, if available
• Profit-and-loss statements
• Recent operating history, including collections and turnover

What's genuinely enough to get a useful answer

• Roughly how many pads exist
• Roughly how many are occupied
• What most people pay for lot rent
• Whether water and sewer are city or private
• Whether the park owns any of the homes
• What you'd like to have happen

With those six things we can usually give you a real reaction: a value range, the two or three unknowns that would move it most, and the structures that tend to fit a property like yours. If we need something specific after that, we'll ask for exactly that item rather than send you a data-request list twenty items long.

What each item on the long list is really for

The rent roll

A rent roll answers three questions at once: who lives there, what they pay, and whether they pay. Any format works — a spreadsheet, a ledger page, a photo of a notebook. What matters is that it shows rent by site, so legacy rates and family arrangements become visible instead of getting buried in an average.

Utility bills and water information

Twelve months of water bills tell a story the P&L can't. Consumption far above what your occupied homes should use usually points to leaks in the distribution lines — a real capital item and a real monthly cost. If the park is on a well or a septic or lagoon system, permits and any monitoring or inspection records matter for the same reason.

Leases, rules, and what happens without them

Many Tennessee parks operate month-to-month with informal arrangements. That's workable. It does mean a buyer will want to understand the practical rules — pets, home age standards, who maintains what, how rent increases have historically been communicated — because those practices carry forward with the residents whether they're written down or not.

Permits, zoning, and grandfathering

Older Tennessee parks frequently predate current county zoning and are legal nonconforming uses. That's common and generally fine, but it raises specific questions: could the park be rebuilt to its current density if something happened, are additional pads permittable, and are there open code items. If you have documentation, it saves time. If you don't, it becomes a diligence item rather than a dealbreaker.

Survey, title, and the fence line

Parks that grew organically over decades sometimes have homes, sheds, or roads that don't match the legal description, along with easements for utilities or neighbor access. A survey resolves this quickly. Without one, we simply plan for it.

Park-owned home information

If the park owns homes, a buyer wants titles or a clear account of where titles stand, year and size of each home, condition, and which are occupied. Missing titles on older homes are a well-known Tennessee friction point and usually solvable — but it's much better to raise it early than to discover it a week before closing.

How to send information without spending a month on it

• Photos of ledger pages are fine. Perfect formatting is not the point.
• Give us your best estimate and label it an estimate — we won't hold you to it.
• Tell us what you don't know. "I have no idea what the water bill runs" is genuinely useful information about the property.
• Flag anything you consider a problem. Problems disclosed early are priced. Problems found late kill deals.