Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You don't give a promissory note, they give the promise to you. A promissory note is nothing magical, it is just a promise to pay, . . . a fancy IOU. So the borrower gives the promissory note to the lender. There is no limit on the payback period. It is whatever you agree on. It can be as short as a week and as long as the borrower's lifetime.

If you already loaned them the money, good luck getting them to sign a promissory note (although you probably have other written evidence). The legal time limit for filing a lawsuit is either 2 or 4 years. You do not have a property interest in the house (they can sell the house and spend the money and not pay you) unless they sign a promissory note and a deed of trust. For this kind of money you should be using an attorney if you haven't given them the money yet -- I sure hope you didn't.

Your use of verbs is confusing. The big question that I have is whether the borrower signed the promissory note? If the borrower signed, then you have a written contract. The statute of limitations to sue for a breach of a written contract is four (4) years. That begins to run when the contract is breached, in other words, the failure to make a payment. If the promissory note was not signed, you may have a problem, in that it may be considered an oral contract. That has a shorter statute of limitations, which is two (2) years from the breach.

The terms of payment in the promissory note itself, as pointed out by Mr. McCormick, can be a number of years or combinations. The only thing of concern to a lawyer is when a breach of the payments occurs, and if the contract was oral, whether the terms require a writing to prevent running afoul of the statute of frauds.

The only other concern that I have is whether or not the promissory note was secured, which has special rules that govern.