Lakeland Mobile Home Leveling Checking a Mobile Home Installer's License in Florida
Florida licenses mobile home installers through the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and specifically its Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction. Verifying that license takes one phone call or one look at the state’s site, costs nothing, and is the single most useful thing you can do before letting anyone put a jack under your home.
This page explains what the license means, how to check it, and what to ask for. It applies to whoever you hire, and that includes us.
What the license covers
Installation is the category that matters for most homeowners, and it covers the work done to a home on its site: blocking, leveling and tie-downs, as well as setting a home in the first place. That last point catches people out. It is easy to assume the license is about hauling homes down the road and that a relevel is handyman work. It is not. The frame someone is asking to lift carries the entire structure, and the state treats the people doing it accordingly.
Florida also sets the technical standards the work is supposed to meet, in the installation rules published in the Florida Administrative Code. Those rules are where pier spacing, footing size, blocking and anchoring requirements come from. Anchoring in particular is tied to the HUD wind zone: inland counties including Polk sit in Wind Zone II, and homes set before the 1994 standards were anchored to a lighter rulebook than the one in force today.
How to check, in order
- Ask for the number in writing. Text, email or on the quote. Not a photograph of a wallet card and not a verbal recital.
- Confirm it with the state. Look it up or call the Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction through flhsmv.gov. Ask specifically whether the license is current, because lapsed licenses are the common failure, not forged ones.
- Ask for the insurance certificate. The license and the liability insurance are different things and neither substitutes for the other. Ask for the certificate itself, with the policy dates on it.
- Ask what happens if a pier cracks a wall. A serious contractor has an answer to this that involves their insurer. An unserious one changes the subject.
Why we put this page up
We do mobile home leveling, pier, and anchor work in Lakeland and Polk County, and the checks on this page apply to us exactly as they apply to anyone else you call. Publishing the verification steps is not against our interest. A homeowner who checks a license is a homeowner who ends up with work that holds, and the fastest way for this trade to lose a customer for good is one bad job done cheaply by someone who could not be found afterward.
If you want the price side of the conversation before the credentials side, the pricing page publishes the full tables and the cost calculator will put a range on your home without asking for an email.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Florida actually license mobile home installers?
Yes. Florida requires a mobile home installer license, issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles through its Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction. It is a state license, not a trade association membership or a voluntary certification, and installation work on a sited home falls under it.
How do I verify someone's license?
Ask the contractor for the license number in writing first. Anyone legitimate hands it over without hesitating. Then confirm it with the Bureau of Mobile Home and Recreational Vehicle Construction at flhsmv.gov, and ask them to confirm that the license is current rather than merely that it once existed. If a company gives you a name and a phone number but will not give you a license number, you already have your answer.
What does the license actually require?
Florida requires an approved 8-hour training course and an examination before the license is issued, the installer must carry liability insurance and a performance bond, and the license is renewed annually. The installation work itself is supposed to follow the state's installation standards in the Florida Administrative Code, which is where the pier, blocking and anchoring rules come from.
The guy quoting me is cheaper and says leveling does not need a license. Is he right?
Setting, blocking, leveling and tie-down work on a manufactured home is installation work, and Florida regulates it. Beyond the legal question there is a practical one: your home weighs many thousands of pounds and spends part of that job sitting on jacks. Hiring someone unlicensed and uninsured means your only recourse if it goes wrong is that person's goodwill.
What should I ask for before work starts?
Four things: the Florida installer license number, proof of current liability insurance, a written quote with the scope spelled out rather than a verbal number, and the pier-by-pier readings from the level check. Any crew that objects to producing all four is telling you something useful for free.
Do I need a permit for a relevel in Polk County?
Permit requirements depend on the scope of the work and are set locally, so the honest answer is to ask Polk County's building department about your specific job rather than to take a contractor's word for it either way. A licensed installer will not be evasive about this. If someone tells you not to call and check, treat that as the useful signal it is.