Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Real Property Liens

At the risk of oversimplifying a complex problem, I would say "probably."

Liens of this sort attach to property, not certain people, even though they originate due to an unpaid obligation of a certain person.

It sounds as though you made a loan to the current owner of record, who is now proposing to give the property back to you rather than make the payments. In a generally rising real-estate market, one must wonder why.

My overall reaction to your question is that you need a lot more information about what is going on, what the property is worth (both on a free-and-clear basis and with the existing liens), and then and only then should you decide how to handle your relationship with the borrower.

California real estate is too valuable to fiddle around with, lacking professional advice. I think you are risking too much to try to decide what to do based on non-specific bulletin board advice. Instead, you should have a real estate broker (or two or three) give you market value estimates, have a preliminary title report run on the liens, then have a real-estate lawyer look at the appraisals and title report and advise you on the basis of the hard facts and an attorney's knowledge of how the law applies to these facts.

One of the legal complications here is that you seem to be both a lender and an heir/owner. Your remedies against the borrower cannot be discussed without a lot more information about the loan, e.g. whether it was purchase-money or a second, and so forth.

You will be better off in the long run to get professional advice in person.