Legal Question in Construction Law in California

That is kind of an odd thing for the seller to do. In any case, however, your husband cannot stop work on a contract because one person says what he will do IF the other person doesn't pay. That is just too speculative to even begin to claim that they are breaching the contract. The good news is that the seller is correct that your husband can put a mechanics lien on the house. That lein will have to be paid off before the sale can close. So even if there is some delay, he should get paid. Mechanics liens can be tricky, however, and a mistake or a missed deadline can result in the lien rights being lost. So if your husband is not fully familiar with the mechanics lien process he should give me or another experienced construction law attorney a call for an explaination of the process.

I agree with Mr. McCormick. I would add that it may not be necessary to enforce the lien, depending on how the contract is written, bcause there is a general rule in contract law that when two buyers of goods or a service both sign and each receives a benefit, each is jointly and severally liable to the seller for the full price. The contract, however, can and may be so written as to produce a different result - for example, if it says each is to pay half, that provision would prevail.