I am in a bit of a tough spot financially. With this downturn in the economy my house has lost a ton of value. I am in a situation where I need to sell the house (totally another story).
If I break even I'll be lucky.

But now for my dilemma: I did some work for a crazy person years ago who decided not to pay me. One of these types of people who are always looking for ways to take advantage of others. Subsequently, I found out that she had done this to many other builders in my town.

So I took her to small claims court and won $980. Instead of paying me she appealed and counterclaimed $1500 for no other reason but to trump my amount. The day of the appeal came and my son fell ill and I had to race him to the hospital. I called the court and they wouldn't help me or pass on the message. Long and short, she won by default and I was adjudged to pay her! Naturally I wasn't about to pay her for work I did.

Evidently she placed a lien on my home. Now I can't sell my house without paying the money plus interest... money I don't have. I'm in a pickle. I am barely able to scrape two nickles together.

Is this just a sorry sob story without any recourse other then to find some way to come up with the money? Or is there some clever, legal way to get out of paying that evil woman? The only other thing I can think of is to call her and ask her to release the lien. (fat chance! )

I am in a bit of a tough spot financially. With this downturn in the economy my house has lost a ton of value. I am in a situation where I need to sell the house (totally another story).
If I break even I'll be lucky.

But now for my dilemma: I did some work for a crazy person years ago who decided not to pay me. One of these types of people who are always looking for ways to take advantage of others. Subsequently, I found out that she had done this to many other builders in my town.

So I took her to small claims court and won $980. Instead of paying me she appealed and counterclaimed $1500 for no other reason but to trump my amount. The day of the appeal came and my son fell ill and I had to race him to the hospital. I called the court and they wouldn't help me or pass on the message. Long and short, she won by default and I was adjudged to pay her! Naturally I wasn't about to pay her for work I did.

Evidently she placed a lien on my home. Now I can't sell my house without paying the money plus interest...money I don't have. I'm in a pickle. I am barely able to scrape two nickles together.

Is this just a sorry sob story without any recourse other then to find some way to come up with the money? Or is there some clever, legal way to get out of paying that evil woman? The only other thing I can think of is to call her and ask her to release the lien. (fat chance!?)


All of the history aside the only way to release the lien is to pay her. (I would assume you didn't attempt to set the Judgment aside at the time.)

You could always attempt to negotiate with her but whether she wants to settle or release the lien is her choice. As things stand now she is somewhat guaranteed she will be paid; I don't know if she drops the lien if she will have that "guarantee." That's her decision.

No, there is no clever, legal way to "get out" of this. She has a Judgment against you and payment is more or less guaranteed by the lien against your property.

EDIT: The lien comes first, off the top, so to speak, by law and you have to be aware of that. Title cannot be transferred until the lien is removed (as Twinkie already pointed out). I'm just clarifying what I said.

If you are selling your home your realtor or title company (or whoever is handling your closing) should be aware, if they are not already aware of the lien, and take the $1,500 from your proceeds and have the lien paid off at your closing. This is done all the time. Then the title can be properly transferred to the new owner having had the lien cleared up. If you don't have the money prior to closing this should not preclude you from selling your home. It is not such an enormous amount to have deducted from any proceeds you are to receive. Talk it over with whoever would be handling your closing.

And the week after the court, you could have appealed the decission.
But with the lien on it, you have little options at this point but to pay it.

Thank you all for your input and advise.

FR_Chuck, I wanted to appeal the appeal but for some reason I was told the case was closed.
It seemed odd to me that it wasn't possible to take it further. Maybe I misinterpreted the ruling.

In this case there will not be any proceeds from the sale of the house. All the equity is gone. And I don't have 2K available to pay the lean. Things are incredibly tight right now.
Hopefully my agent will help me figure out a solution.

Thanks again you all for your insight.