Question by Jaime: Can we be sold a house with a lien when previous owner signed off stating there were no liens on home?
Help! What legal stance do we have, if any? We are military and have a renter in our house. Recently we tried to refinance and found out that the previous homeowner had a lien still on the home even though we signed papers during closing that there was no lien against the house. What does this mean? What grounds do we have? Who owns the house? What now? Help!!!!!
Best answer:
Answer by Jeff
You don’t own all of the house, whoever has the lein now owns part of your house as well. You will have to take this to court or at least get real legal advice from a lawyer. Depending on your local laws you might be able to undo the whole deal, sue for the amount of the lein plus interest or penalty, sue for fraud etc. There are lots of possible outcomes and if it is a large amount of money it is worth a meeting with a lawyer. The seller lied to you in a legal contract and there are ways to fix this but it might not be fast or cheap.
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Go back to the title company that did your title work and holds your title insurance policy. If you did not get a title search and you did not get title insurance…the lien is now yours.
You still own the whole house. A lienholder never owns part of your house.
By a person or company having a lien on the property does not give them any portion of the house nor any ownership. You are the sole owner with a lien as your mortgage is a lien, but hold no ownership of the property.
It would appear to me that the previous owner might have added the lien after closing of the sale transaction between you and him. If you have a VA mortgage loan there could be no other liens against the property, unless added after the close.
You might would want to check with the county recorder’s office to see when this lien was recorded against the property, as well as the type lien.
If this lien was recorded against the property through a mistake or error, the former owner would be required to sign off indicating no lien exist.
If the former owner insist that this is a legal lien it might be that yo would need to sue this individual in court, to protect your interest.
From one combat veteran to another veteran, thanks for serving.
I hope this has been of some benefit to you, good luck.
“FIGHT ON”
It is hard to imagine that the mortgage holder would approve a mortgage on a property with outstanding lien(s).