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sdccds1 · Jun 28, 2010, 02:33 PM

We wrote an offer on a short-sale SFR home in Orange County, CA. Seller wants buyer to pay alimony judgement lien that does not show on the title of the property. Does an alimony judgement follow a person or property? Does a judgement liens take first position on a property over the mortgage holder? Is it even legal for the seller to ask a buyer to pay an alimony lien?
Thank you!
-Anna

AK lawyer · Jun 28, 2010, 03:07 PM

We wrote an offer on a short-sale SFR home in Orange County, CA.

Was your offer accepted? Accepted before the issue of the alimony was brought up?

Seller wants buyer to pay alimony judgement lien that does not show on the title of the property.

I'm not following you. If it doesn't show on the title report, how do you figure it's a lien?

Does an alimony judgement follow a person or property?

Both, if properly recorded as a judgment.

Does a judgement liens take first position on a property over the mortgage holder?

No.

Is it even legal for the seller to ask a buyer to pay an alimony lien?

They can ask for anything. Is buyer legally obligated to pay it? Not unless buyer has agreed to do so.

sdccds1 · Jun 28, 2010, 03:31 PM

Our offer has not been accepted yet, we are in multiple counter-offers.
We were told by the selling agent that the seller produced paperwork to show that an alimony lien is on the house, but it does not show on the property title. This was a confusing point to us as well. How can it be a lien if it isn't filed against the title of the property?

AK lawyer · Jun 28, 2010, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by sdccds1

Our offer has not been accepted yet, we are in multiple counter-offers.
We were told by the selling agent that the seller produced paperwork to show that an alimony lien is on the house, but it does not show on the property title. This was a confusing point to us as well. How can it be a lien if it isn't filed against the title of the property?

Just a guess, but possibly because the judgment was entered by the court but never recorded as a judgment lien. Now you are on notice of it the same as if it were in the title report.

As I undertand it, when you made your offer you were not aware of the alimony judgment. If they were to accept it, they would be responsible for the alimony. It's entirely your choice whether you want to make another offer agreeing to pay the alimony.

Fr_Chuck · Jun 28, 2010, 07:01 PM

And no you can not have "multi counters" only the last counter offer is the valid one, all other counter offers are voided when a new counter is issued

steppingup · Oct 19, 2010, 08:55 AM

OMG, I suspect that we also were one of the hopeful buyers of the property that is being mentioned here. Was it on Grove? The entire reason I ended up on this site today is because I suspect there was fraud involved in the sale of the property. The seller wanted his alimony lien paid, which was $50K. Since it was a short sale, all of us figured that the bank would not accept taking that big of a bath and that it would be in the bank's interest to foreclose on the property rather than agree to the seller getting his alimony lien paid.

It's my understanding that all of the offers included a token amount towards this lien in order to entice Bank of America to approve the short sale. Here is why I suspect fraud. The bidding war was really coming down to the highest and best cash offer. The offer accepted was for EXACTLY what we offered but the seller chose other offer because he had met the person before.

steppingup · Oct 19, 2010, 08:58 AM

Three weeks after closing, the property comes on the market for $144K over what it sold for and the only improvement done was cleaning up the junk! The sale date is showing 9/27/10, but I bet it was actually 9/24/10 and I just confirmed that the seller's lien was released from HIM on 9/24/10. I'm going to the OC Register with this one.