Hello. We were about to purchase a home we found in another town and do a bridge loan with our bank until we can sell the one we currently live in. When our bank did a title search on our property( 1.1 acres and a modular home) they found an old lien that should have been paid off everything by the people we bought it from 5 yrs ago. The lady that sold us our house had taken out a 2nd mortgage. We remember at that closing, a check was made out to her mortgage co and another check to her for the difference. This mortgage payment should have cleared the title. We lived there 2 yrs and sold the house and 1 appx. 1 ac it was sitting on and retained 1.1 to put a modular home on. (The original property was a home and 2 ac.) Since then we have found out that the mortgage co she used dissolved and they sold their account to ANOTHER company. Not only do they hold a lien against our property but also to our neighbors that bought the house and 1 ac from us! When we sold the house to our neighbors the lien did not show in the title search! What do we do?! Help!

I'd be speaking to both the title company that didn't catch this AND the Attorney(s) who didn't catch this.

This happens when lenders 'forget' to release liens. It probably wasn't anything underhanded by the original owner, just sloppy work on the part of the lender, or lost paperwork when one lender sold out to another. This is why you buy title insurance. If you didn't, you have to sue. It isn't clear who you will sure because you will have to find out who dropped the ball along the way.

This happened to me. Title searches are done at the last minute on purpose, and ours showed as unreleased the day of the closing. They wanted us to pay for a courier to go way into the city etc, and we said, hey this is your problem. So they paid for it.