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Hi Robert. Thanks for coming back with more detail. I suspected that there was a lien that was not taken care of. I don't know why this lien did not show sooner, but the attorney who represented you should contact the IRS a.s.a.p. and have them sign a release of the lien document that can be recorded. I don't know how quickly that can be accomplished. In the meantime the abstract company should issue you a new check minus the amount of the lien. Once the lien issue has been taken care of, they can release the remainder to you. That's what I think should happen, but your attorney may have a different view on this. Please understand, that we are real estate agents and can't give you legal advice. We share information based on our experience and I have never had this happen. I did have, however, have a buyer once who contacted me after the close of escrow because there was an unpaid past property tax bill. The preliminary title report did not show that lien because it was recorded while we were in escrow and apparently the title company did not check for new liens just before escrow closed. I contacted the seller's agent and told him about the problem and the sellers agreed to pay the late taxes. In that same transaction we had to get the county to remove an old lis pendens that should have been removed some 5 years earlier. Unfortunately, the government is much quicker recording liens than it is removing them in a timely fashion. The lis pendens showed in the prelim and we were able to get it removed very quickly as it was a local agency that was involved and we could just walk the paper to their office and have the county counsel attorney sign it and record it.
Ask your attorney if you have any recourse against the title company for having missed the tax lien. I personally doubt it, but you won't know unless you ask the question. Maybe your accountant could help get this resolved quickly. Good luck.
Thu Oct 11 2007, 07:49
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