Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Foreclosure. Get an experienced attorney or foreclosure firm if you don't know how to do so yourself.

There are two separate roads. If you have a security interest - normally a deed of trust - you can foreclose. Otherwise, you are limited to a lawsuit on your loan contract, although perhaps you also have a vendor's lien under Civil Code section 3046.

For more specific advice, contact me directly with full particulars.

Your post is confusing because you use the term "carry." Normally, when a seller sells property to a buyer, the seller can finance the transaction and "carries" back a note secured by a deed of trust for the remaining balance of the purchase price. No funds actually change hands however. In other words, the seller does not loan actual money to the buyer, and then ask for payments back. The seller simply "carries" and receives payments. This situation is different than other types of financing, such as an actual loan by a third party lender, who actually loans money to the buyer, evidenced by a note secured by a deed of trust.

Your term "carry" doesn't make sense unless the contractors were also the purchasers. If that were true, the vendor's lien mentioned by Mr. Whipple would make sense, but only if your note was unsecured. A vendor's lien is described in the Civil Code. "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.)

But if the contractors were not the purchasers, then the term "carry" does not make any sense.

You may want to repost your question, providing more information detailing the transaction, and whether or not the obligation was secured.