Buying a property with a county lien recorded against buyer...

[Herm M.]

Two buyers are on the purchase contract for a short sale.

The plan was to take title under solely buyer #1.

Because of the short sale approvals, title has to be taken by buyer #2 also.

Buyer #2 has a county lien recorded against him by a creditor.

Options:

a) Write an addendum and tell the two lenders that buyer #2 is being removed as a buyer. This means waiting X amount of time to revise the approvals.

b) Can the two buyers take title as "tenants in common" with buyer #1 taking 99% and buyer #2 taking 1%? This would mean that buyer #2 legally has a 1% ownership in the property. In effect, this means that the creditors can only come after a 1% share of the property, so they cannot touch buyer #1's share of 99%. Is this correct? Or can they go after buyer #1's share?

The lien is for 48k. The property value will be about 475k.