My husband bought his grandparents home after they died from his parents. The house was paid for, but his parents took out a mortgage and gave a portion of that to my husband when he bought the house from them 12 yrs ago. I don't believe there was any paperwork from this. Our home is through Country wide mortgage. His parents decided they wanted their money now instead of later. We tried to refinance for a lower interest rate, and found out they put a lien on our home for $37,000 8 months ago. We were never notified or served with anything... is this legal? How can someone just go and do that?
EandK

I'm confused here. If your husband bought the hoime, then why did his parents take out a mortgage? Or is it that they GAVE him a mortgage? If so, where does CountryWide come into this?

For them to put a lien on the property they would have to prove they have an interest in the property. Your post is not clear enough to tell whether they do or not.

Sorry for the mess... this is so confusing! His parents took out a mortgage on the home, and then my husband got a home loan from country wide for the price that they sold it to him. Before they sold it, they took out some equity from the home and gave my husband some of that money. He is not denying that he owes the money and would have paid them off when we sell. Country wide is our mortgage holder. They thought since we were refinancing, that they could get their money now... we were just trying to get a premium interest rate with the market so terrible at this time. I don't think they have anything signed by my husband. This all happened before we were even together. He does not have a good relationship with them, so they are pulling out whatever they can to make life hard I guess!

You can fight the lien on the grounds there is no basis for it. If there is no docuntation. But if they have proof they gave him money, that might be enough.

1. You and your husband could not buy a home that had a mortgage on it, unless the previous mortgage was either paid off or assumed, so if the parents had a mortgage on the home before you bought it, that loan would have had to be paid BEFORE, you could transfer it into your name.

2. If the parents took out a mortgage after you bought it, that was not legal

When you bought it was there a deed transferred, did you register a deed in your name?

Something does not sound like it was done 100 percent legal to me, but this is actually common to make a lot of mistakes when sales are done between family without a title company or attorney.