Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

It is up to her to prove payments, if you disagree on the amount. If not, then receipts for the payments made don't matter. You don't provide enough information to tell whether you can foreclose or not. Specifically, you don't say whether you got a deed of trust when you made the loan. You can't just foreclose if you didn't get a deed of trust. You would have to sue, although you could include a cause of action for a vendor's lien that would allow you to attach the property at the beginning of the lawsuit instead of at the end, and would give you the right to foreclose on the lien at the end of the lawsuit.

If you financed the sale with a carry back promissory note, secured by a deed of trust, then you are squarely within the provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 580b. That section prohibits a deficiency judgment in purchase money mortgage situations. If that is the case, then I would simply recommend foreclosure by having a trustee's sale.

If you did not get security for the promissory note, you would have to sue on the note.

A vendor's lien is pretty much garbage, in my opinion. "We hold that the recordation of a notice of vendor's lien does not provide constructive notice to bona fide purchasers for value, and thus we reverse the judgment." (Brown v. Johnson (3rd Dist. 1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 844.) A vendor's lien is described by statute. "One who sells real property has a vendor's lien thereon, independent of possession, for so much of the price as remains unpaid and unsecured otherwise than by the personal obligation of the buyer." (Civ. Code, sect. 3046.)

The right to resort to a vendor's lien must be established by a lawsuit, and the lien is of no operative force or effect until established by a decree of court and may be asserted only by a lawsuit in equity for the purpose of obtaining such a decree. (Mills v. Mills (1956) 147 Cal.App.2d 107, 118.) The time frame would be no different than just obtaining a judgment on the promissory note for breach of contract, and then recording an abstract of judgment, which would create a recognizable lien against third parties.

Obviously, you are not entitled to a vendor's lien, if the note was secured by a deed of trust, or other instrument. A vendor's lien is not going to help you if the buyer took outright title, and sells to a third party bona fide purchaser for value, prior to your suit, or prior to the court issuing a decree. At that point, you would be stuck chasing your former buyer around with a judgment.