Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: lien on property

How the devil are we supposed to know whether the lien is valid based solely on your question? Get a copy of the lien from the county recorder, and any underlying judgment/renewal of judgment from the courthouse, and take these documents to a lawyer in whom you have confidence.

Re: lien on property

Depending upon why and how the lien was placed, you may be able to bring legal action to have it removed as invalid, if you have proper grounds to do so. Without knowing the all facts, no advice or opinion can be given. If this is in SoCal, and you're serious about getting help, feel free to contact me.

Re: lien on property

If you're talking about a mechanic's lien, you can have it removed, assuming the claimant never filed suit to foreclose. A mechanic's lien claimant must file suit to foreclose on that lien within 90 days of recordation of the lien claim. If no suit is filed within that 90-day period, the lien is stale, i.e. void. The problem, though, is that the lien is still "of record", and constitutes an unwarranted cloud on title.

Thus, Civil Code Sec 3154 allows a property owner to petition the court for a decree releasing the property from a stale lien. The petition identifies the property, the lien and its recording date, the fact that no suit was filed to foreclose, and that the owner hasn't filed bankruptcy or that there's no other impediment to the lien claimant filing suit.

If this is what you're looking at, getting the lien removed shouldn't be a large problem. However, I strongly suggest that you engage counsel who are very familiar with the procedure. A surprising number of court room clerks, judges, etc., are not familiar with the procedure. Unless you have counsel who knows how to avoid problems that uninformed court staff can cause, it may be a long slow painful process.

If you're talking about some other kind of lien, then I couldn't give you any information at all, without knowing the kind of lien and the circumstances surrounding creation of the lien and the underlying obligation.

Hope this helps - let me know if you have further questions.

Regards,

Tom Newton

Re: lien on property

The lien was probably a mechanic's lien - they are the most likely to show up and you not to know about - but could be a judgment lien. In either case, if there has been no renewal and no attempt to enforce, the lien has expired and cannot be enforced now, whether it was originally valid or not. There is a statutory procedure to petition for release set forth in Civil Code section 3154, and it provides for $2,000 of legal fees for a successful petitioner (if the fees are incurred and if the defendant or respondent is around and able to pay). I do not see much value in going through the hoops. A successful petition will NOT result in physical expungement of the lien from the public record. All that will happen is the addition, in 2009, of a further notation on the records that the old 1992 lien is released due to expiration, a fact that should be apparent to any experienced title examiner anyway. However, if it's important to you, thre is a process.

Re: lien on property

It depends on the type of lien. We will have to review the lien. For example, a mechanic's lien in which no lawsuit follows in 90 days can be removed. A judgment lien is good for 10 years and can be renewed for an additional ten years.