Frustrated!!!!

[ilikchikin]

Judicial Lien question

My husband filed for ch 13 bk pro se and is confirmed.

He is in his second year of the plan. We just found out that a creditor attached a lien to our house. We don't know when this happened, yet.

My husband is on the title to the house as a co-owner. His mother is the owner with the mortgage in her name, but we make the payments. We were in the process of refinancing, thru his mother of course, but the title company found the lien and now we are not closing tomorrow.

Can we get the lien stripped from the house? The creditor that attached the lien is being paid thru the plan. Then lien is for more than what the creditor sued for. We can't find the lien anywhere in our public records, we just wanted to see when it was issued.

I know my questions are all jumbled but, I'm just little frustrated. Please help.

[lrprn]

First question - how do you know for sure a lien was filed on the house? You said you can't find the lien when you searched your local court records. Were you served papers from the court?

If you are sure the lien is legitimate, then the second question is whether the lien was attached to the house before or after your husband filed his Ch 13.

We can help you sort this out better if you can share the answers to both questions.

[justbroke]

As in the other thread, I wonder when this judgment was granted. If it was prior to the case being filed, then you should be able to avoid it since it impair the unlimited homestead exemption in Florida. Too bad that you are pro se and don't have an attorney to lean on. This should have been dealt with prior to confirmation, and you may get some issues with attempting a strip now.

In any event, and as I stated in the other thread, a lien strip doesn't strip the lien immediately (in Florida and the 11th Circuit). You will get the lien strip upon discharge. However, I would not go for a lien strip, but a lien avoidance since this is different. You may need to hire an attorney if you don't know how to file a motion to avoid lien and then to prosecute the case.

Also, as in the other thread, what was this judgment for? A credit card or other unsecured debt? Since you knew about it and put it in the plan, that means that you knew that it was secured debt (since only secured and priority creditors are "named" in the plan).