Natasha Johnson

Existing law, the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980, requires specified persons, including legal owners and junior lienholders of manufactured homes, mobilehomes, or commercial modulars, to execute and deliver prescribed documents to the Department of Housing and Community Development to create, assign, or release security interests and to effect changes to the permanent title record maintained by the department. Existing law requires the department, upon receipt of those documents and applicable fees, to amend its records and issue updated certificates or registration documents and provides remedies if a secured party fails to release its interest as required.

Existing law authorizes the use of a digital signature in any written communication with a public entity, as defined, in which a signature is required or used. Existing law provides that a digital signature shall have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature only if it embodies certain attributes, including, among other things, that it is under the sole control of the person using it.

This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2028, to accept a verified signature executed electronically on a document submitted to release or satisfy a security interest held by a legal owner pursuant to the above-described provisions of the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980 and to treat that signature as having the same force and effect as an original signature. The bill would define "verified signature executed electronically" as a digital signature that embodies all of the above-described attributes required to have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature. The bill would prohibit the department from requiring submission of a wet signature to release or satisfy a legal owner's security interest pursuant to the above-described provisions of the Manufactured Housing Act of 1980.