Live in manager/maintenance threatening lien to prevent sale

[Jason Bilbrey]

Looking for some advice. I’m about two weeks away from closing on a 6-Plex and the seller just notified me that his live in manager/maintenance guy threatened to put a construction lien on the property. They have no written contract and he inherited the guy from the previous owner. The verbal agreement they had was the manager gets free rent for managing/maintaining the property including repairs, etc. I believe by trade he is a carpenter. Owner pays for all materials and manager provides labor.

My intention is to replace the manager with a paying tenant and manage the property myself. When the manager heard he was going to be evicted by me with a 30 day notice to quit he started threatening that he would put a construction lien to block the sale and also claiming he had a 6 month notice clause before he could be evicted.

As the buyer, should I delay closing until the seller clears this up, or will the legal issues stay with the seller and I won’t have to worry about it after sale.

Has anyone dealt with a situation like this (either as the seller or buyer)? What advice do you have?