Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My boyfriend and I bought a home together. We are listed as two single persons on the title. Four months later we married. A homestead declaration was filed and recorded together two years later and has remained on the home for the last 15 years. My husband and I separated 10 years ago. Not a legal separation. I've remained in the home for all 15 years. No refinancing, etc. has ever been done on the home. We divorced last year. My husband quit deeded the home to me. I submitted paperwork to change the Title to only my name. I applied for an equity line of credit and was initially approved until a Title Report was obtained by my bank. I was informed that my now ex-husband has 6 liens against him on the house. Three were from child support. I was able to get the Child Support Agency to remove these. They did not realize that we both owned the home when the liens were placed. Three other liens remain by creditors. The Title Report sttes that there is a Homestead Declaration recorded on the property. All these liens were placed after our separation date listed on our divorce dissolution. I have no plans on selling my home. My questions are: Do I have any rights towards these liens filed against my now ex-husband since I have the Homestead Declaration. Could I possible get these liens removed since they're aginst him and I have the Declaration? How should I proceed in this situation? The home is in California and the debt is about $15,000. I had an attorney for my divorce. Shouldn't this have been caught? These debts weren't listed by my ex-husband on the divorce papers. Any help/suggestions is greatly appreciated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
You need to go back to the attorney who handled your divorce and have him or her clean this up for you. With such a long lag between separation and divorce, they should have pulled a title report before you agreed on the property distribution. The homestead declaration is pretty meaningless, since the homestead exemption is automatic. The declaration only identifies what property you claim it on if you own multiple properties. It also only has relevance if one of the creditors tries to enforce the judgment. If the house is sold at a judgment sale, the homestead exemption pays you the statutory homestead amount out of the proceeds before the judgment creditor gets their share. That is all the homestead does. If the liens were recorded before you recorded the quitclaim deed in the divorce, they are valid liens because until then he owned 1/2 the property. He should have disclosed the debts. So your remedy lies with action against him to remove the liens. He is going to be in big trouble with the Family Law court for not disclosing the debts.
I would only add that you should move pretty quickly because the time window to modify a divorce decree due to erroneous (fraudulent) disclosures by a party can be short.
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