Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Most real-estate purchase deals will require the seller, either explicitly or by legal implication (or both) to deliver title free from known, recorded adverse claims other than those disclosed and consented to by the buyer. So, your choices may be rather limited -- either pay off the liens or go into breach of your sale contract. There may be some other alternatives, such as having the escrow holder retain enough of the sale proceeds to cover the liens while you try to get them released. It's a business decision with some legal overtones. The size of the liens in relation to the size of the sale would be an important factor; also, what's your guesstimate of the difficulty of getting them removed without paying them off? How did they get there, and is there any legitimacy to them, or are they pure errors?

Mr. Whipple gave you a very practical answer. If you need to close the transaction to avoid being in default of the sale contract terms regarding close of escrow and delivery of the property, you may have to pay the liens or as he suggested, negotiate a hold-back in escrow of the funds to pay the liens with an agreement that if you do not clear them within a certain time, the funds will be used to pay off the liens.

From a legal standpoint, the ultimate question is are you obligated to pay the liens or do you have a right to have them removed without payment. You say you are not the obligor on the liens, but if that is the case it is rather odd that anyone was able to attach them to your property. Without an explanation of why they attached to your property when you had no obligation to pay the underlying debt or judgment, there is no way to advise you whether you ultimately will have to pay them off or not.

do i have to pay??

If you want to close escrow, and you can't get the lien claimants to release the liens in a timely manner so you can close escrow and not get sued by the buyer for 'breach', you either pay the liens through escrow, or "insure around them" [ask your escrow to explain and arrange], then fight them later if you have legal basis to do so. If serious about hiring counsel to help in this, feel free to contact me.