How to Fill Out and Submit MHD Form 1023: Texas Statement of Ownership

MHD Form 1023 is the application you send to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) to obtain a Statement of Ownership for a manufactured home after a sale, transfer, or relocation. Under Texas Occupations Code Section 1201.206, the seller or new owner has 60 days from the date of sale or move to get the completed application to TDHCA, and the form also fixes whether the home is treated as personal property or real property for tax and financing purposes.¹ One detail worth knowing before you start: ownership does not legally pass until the completed application is filed with TDHCA. A bill of sale alone doesn’t transfer title.

What to Gather Before You Open the Form

Missing information is the fastest way to get an application returned and restart the processing clock. Pull everything together first.

Home Identification

Block 2 asks for the manufacturer’s name and address, model, date of manufacture, the complete serial number for each section, and the HUD Label or Texas Seal number. The serial number is stamped into the steel cross-member where the towing hitch attaches to each section. The HUD Label is a metal plate on the exterior of homes built after June 15, 1976, and its number also appears on the interior data plate — a paper label usually near the main electrical panel, inside a kitchen cabinet, or in a bedroom closet.²

You also need the outside length and width measured to the nearest half-foot at the base (not counting the tongue), total square footage, and the wind zone rating.³

If the HUD Label or Texas Seal is not physically on the home, Block 2(b) is where you disclose that. TDHCA will issue a new Texas Seal for each section at $35 per section.³

Supporting Documents

What you attach depends on the transaction:

Bill of sale for private-party and dealer transactions.
Release of Lien (MHD Form 1013) if a paid-off lender held a security interest.
TxDMV moving permit if the home was relocated for this sale. If the move is too old for a permit to be available, a tax certificate from the county where the home used to sit, showing no taxes due, can substitute.⁴
Tax certificate from the county tax assessor-collector for any used home not in a retailer’s inventory, and for conversions to real property. It must confirm no outstanding tax liens for any January 1 in the 18 months before the sale.¹
Legal description of the land (typically Exhibit A from your deed or title commitment), only if you are electing real property.
Certified marriage license, court order, or death certificate for any owner name change.

Completing the Form Block by Block

The form is organized into numbered blocks. Here is what each one wants and where errors tend to happen.

Block 1 — Transaction identification. Check whether the transaction is personal or real property, and whether the home is new or used. Also pick your processing speed: normal (15 working days) or priority (5 working days) for an added fee. A single home cannot be both personal and real property.³

Block 2 — Home information. Enter every identifier you gathered: manufacturer, model, manufacture date, serial numbers, label or seal numbers, dimensions, square footage, wind zone. Block 2(b) covers whether the HUD Label or Texas Seal is physically attached.

Block 3 — Home location. Give the physical street address where the home is installed (no P.O. boxes), plus city, state, ZIP, and county. If the home was moved for this sale, check “Yes” and attach the TxDMV moving permit. For a new installation, enter the installation date and the installer’s name, address, and license number.

Block 4 — Ownership information. Block 4(a) is the seller or transferor; 4(b) is the buyer, transferee, or current owner. Include full legal names, mailing addresses, and daytime phone numbers, plus a retailer license number if either party is a licensed retailer. Block 4(c) asks whether the transaction is a sale, and 4(d) is the date of the sale, transfer, or ownership change.

Block 5 — Right of survivorship or beneficiary. Joint owners who want automatic inheritance by the survivor check the right-of-survivorship box. Beneficiary designations are available only for homes classified as personal property.

Block 6 — Election. The personal vs. real property choice. Covered in detail below.

Block 8 — Lien information. If a bank or finance company holds a security interest, enter first and second lienholder details here. Leaving this blank when a lien exists, or filling it in incorrectly, is one of the most common reasons applications get returned.

Block 10 — Signatures. All required parties sign. Notarization is optional; TDHCA does not require it to process the application.⁵ Notarizing signatures anyway can help head off later disputes, and a Texas notary charges a maximum of $10 per signature.

The Personal vs. Real Property Election in Block 6

All manufactured housing in Texas is titled as personal property by default unless the owner affirmatively elects real property status.³ This choice controls taxes, financing options, and how future transfers work, so it deserves attention.

To elect real property, check one of three boxes: you own the land the home is attached to, you hold a qualifying long-term lease for that land, or you are the holder or servicer of the loan on the home.⁵ You also attach a legal description of the land.

Electing real property on the form is only step one. After TDHCA issues the Statement of Ownership, you have 60 days to file a certified copy in the real property records of the county where the home sits, then send a file-stamped copy back to TDHCA. Skip either step and the home stays personal property regardless of what you checked.⁵

Financing consequences follow from the election. FHA and VA lenders generally require the home and land to be titled together as real property. For FHA combination loans, the personal-property title must be surrendered and the home held in fee simple; otherwise it is treated as chattel, which limits loan options and typically means higher interest rates.⁶ If you rent the lot rather than own it, real property election usually is not available, which can rule out conventional mortgage products.

Fees, Where to Send It, and the 60-Day Deadline

Mail the completed application, supporting documents, and payment to:

TDHCA Manufactured Housing Division
P.O. Box 12489
Austin, Texas 78711-2489⁷

TDHCA does not offer an online portal for submitting Form 1023. You can look up existing ownership records online, but the application itself has to be mailed.

The fees:

Statement of Ownership issuance: $55 per transaction, applied to every change that produces a new Statement of Ownership — sales, lien releases, name changes, relocations.⁸
Priority handling: an additional $55 for review within 5 working days.⁹
Texas Seal: $35 per section when the home lacks a HUD Label or Texas Seal on the exterior.³

The seller at a retail sale must file within 60 days of the sale date, and the same 60-day window applies to subsequent sales of a home classified as personal property. If the seller misses the deadline, the buyer can file. When a home is relocated without a change of ownership, the owner has 60 days from the move date to file for a new Statement of Ownership showing the new location.¹

Filing late after a sale to a consumer for residential use can result in a late fee of up to $100 assessed against the seller, on top of the $55 issuance fee. Late applications also take longer, because staff may need to verify additional records.⁵

Processing Time and What You Receive

Standard processing is 15 working days from the date TDHCA receives a complete application, not counting mail transit either direction. Priority handling drops that to 5 working days.¹⁰ “Complete” is the key word. If anything is missing or wrong, TDHCA returns the application, and the clock restarts when they receive the corrected version.

Once approved, TDHCA issues the Statement of Ownership, which replaces any previous title documents. That certificate is your proof of ownership for insurance, financing, future sales, and property tax purposes. Store it carefully; a corrected or replacement Statement of Ownership costs another $55.⁹

If You Are Moving the Home

Moving a manufactured home to a new Texas address triggers a new Form 1023 filing, even if ownership does not change. Before the move, the transporter must obtain a moving permit from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV), and a copy of that permit goes with your application.⁴ Any existing lienholders must either be paid off or give written consent to the relocation. After the home is at its new site, you have 60 days to file, and TDHCA will require evidence the move complied with TxDMV requirements.¹

If you are buying a used home, check the TDHCA ownership database before you submit anything. The free search lets you look up homes by label or seal number, serial number, address, owner name, or certificate number, and it will surface mortgage and tax liens as well as the currently recorded owner.¹¹ A name mismatch or unrecorded lien found after payment is a much bigger problem than one found in a five-minute search.

1
Texas Public Law. Texas Occupations Code Section 1201.206 – Application for Issuance of Statement of Ownership
2
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Manufactured Housing HUD Labels (Tags)
3
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. MHD Form 1023 – Application for Statement of Ownership
4
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Frequently Asked Questions – Statement of Ownership
5
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Application for Statement of Ownership
6
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Financing Manufactured Homes (Title I)
7
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Contact the Manufactured Housing Division
8
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Fee Schedule
9
Law.cornell.edu. 10 Texas Admin Code 80-3 – Fees
10
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Statement of Ownership Application Instructions
11
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Manufactured Housing – Home Ownership View