New C-47 Applicants Now Required to Show Training Certificate

Dec 17

Since September 30, 2021, anyone applying for a C-47 General Manufactured Housing contractor license has had to provide proof of completed installer training before the CSLB will issue the license.

The requirement sits in 16 CCR section 825.5. It is still in force, and it is the step most C-47 applicants do not see coming.

What you have to submit

You need a Certificate of Completion of Training issued by a trainer approved by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The certificate goes in with your license application rather than being produced later on request.

The training itself has to follow the curriculum set out in federal regulations at 24 CFR 3286.308(a), and the certificate is the one specified at 24 CFR 3286.303(c). In practice that means you cannot use any general installation course. It has to come from a HUD approved trainer under the Manufactured Home Installation Program.

Already licensed? You are exempt

Existing C-47 qualifiers do not need to complete the training or produce a certificate. The requirement applies to new applications only.

One thing to watch is a change of qualifier. If you bring in a new qualifier for the C-47 classification, they are going through the application process, so the training requirement applies to them.

Why the CSLB brought this in

This was not a Board initiative so much as a federal one. HUD sets the standards for manufactured home installation nationally, and California operates its installation program under HUD's conditional acceptance.

Without an initial installer training requirement, California's program would not have been compliant with federal rules, and HUD could have withdrawn that acceptance and started running its own program in the state, including the training and licensing of installers. The CSLB adopted 825.5 to avoid that.

It is a small classification. There were around 417 active C-47 licenses in California as of mid 2020, with roughly 40 new applications a year, so this is a rule that affects a specialized group rather than the wider trade.

Everything else still applies

The training certificate is an extra requirement, not a replacement for the standard ones. A C-47 applicant still needs four years of journey level experience, a pass in both the Law and Business exam and the C-47 trade exam, and a$25,000 contractors bond on file.

Plan the training in early. Sorting the HUD course after your application has gone in is the quickest way to stall it.

Where to read the detail

The CSLB's final approved regulation language for 16 CCR 825.5 sets out the requirement in full.

The CSLB also published anindustry bulletin summarizing the change.

You can find approved trainers through HUD's Manufactured Home Installation Program.

Applying for a C-47?

We can walk you through the application, the experience documentation and the exam process, and make sure the training certificate is in place before it holds anything up. We have been helping California contractors for more than 19 years.

Call us now on (800) 580-8129 orget in touch and we will talk it through.