Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

The pre-sale inspection of property, including both "regular" homes, manufactured homes, mobile homes and all other kinds of real and personal property, varies substantially from deal to deal. Some "regular" homes are sold sight-unseen, although this is obviously unusual and often pretty dumb. Often, houses are sold with only an appraisal and maybe one or two walk-throughs by the buyer. I think structural pest-control ("termite") inspections are quite common these days, but by no means universal, as are the more general housing inspections done for the buyer by a third-party "expert."

Frankly, I'm not sure why inspection is an issue connected with possibly walking away from this property. If there were a loan secured by it, to be sure, the lender might do an inspection to see whether the collateral has been maintained in conformity with any maintenance requirement in the loan agreement.

I think there are two main considerations in "walking away" which have little to do with whether it will be inspected or what an inspector might find and/or report. One is whether any lender will be able to have recourse to your mother's other property after a default. Financing and default rules are different for mobile homes than for real property homes. The second possible problem area is whether the mobile home park or whatever will come after her for costs associated with any default, removal of the decrepit home, or other violations of its rules. Maybe being candid with the park operator or other landlord, as well as any lender, would lead to a structured termination of responsibilities that would be preferable to just abandoning the mobile home and disappearing.