We recently sold our condo, a unit among 180. At title we were told there was a mechanic's lien on all of the units, they withheld $500 at closing from us. The lien is for $7,800 total (which is $43.33 per unit).

The strange thing is I was on the Board and never heard of this company having done any work for us or looking to be paid. The management co. knows nothing about it either.

The copy of the lien has the developer as the entity who ordered the work done. They have not owned the property in over 2 years, it was a conversion and they only owned it until 75% of the units sold.

My question is, are they allowed to go after the homeowners, many of whom may not have lived there then? Or should they be required to go after the developer? Also, how long can they withhold this money? Do they have to take it to court after a set amount of time? Thanks!

If you are paying $500 towards the lien, it looks like they have spread it out between 15-16 tenants. Do you know of someone else who has sold their unit and did they have to pay $500? You would have to do some digging and see what is really going on. I would start with the contractor(s) who did the work and placed the lien and see if they can give you some insight. Just because the developer order the work to be done that does not mean they were responsible for paying the contractor's.

Thanks, they are just holding the money at title and really doing nothing w/ it. It's been 3 weeks though since close and I just found out today supposedly the HOA Management co. knows nothing about this. But yes it would really be less than $50 per unit and the title co. chose to keep $500. Which is pretty ridiculous.

But I do have the paperwork on it, it liened all 180 units and the total amount is $7,800, so not sure how title was allowed to keep that much in the first place.

I've been there, but with a private home. There are things which must be watched out for:

- The lien might be fraudulent. This happened to me, when a company split into two parts in the middle of the job. The order was made before the split. One part completed the actual work, but the other part filed a lien on the property for the amount. We got the closing lawyers to sort it out, and the correct party was paid.

- The lien might be for work ordered by government. This usually involves sidewalk repairs, or the removal or trimming of trees which obstruct the views of drivers on adjacent roads. Since these are usually required by law, the government can order the work done if the owner doesn't do it, and charge the owner for the work. If the owner doesn't pay, a lien is applied.

If this is the case, only the units adjacent to the repaired sidewalk or the trees blocking vision might get the bill.

One case may be that the change of ownership from the developer to the unit owners occurred after the work was done, but before the lien was applied.

Yes, that is what happened, the developer (who is also being sued by the complex anyway-and every development they did in Las Vegas) ordered the work and had it done, must have been over 2 years ago. It says on the lien that they did order the work, and the work was "labor services for residential construction". It states all 180 units are liened also.

I guess my question is I read in CA that for a mechanic's lien that they have to file a lawsuit in 90 days, is that typical? Also, was title allowed to withhold $500, when the lien is for $7,800 total over 180 units, so that is $43.33 per unit? I would think there would be some kind of regulation on what title can hold and for how long, but no one at title even seems to know anything about it, if you can believe that.