What happens to a County Zoning Violation Lien at auction?

Does anybody know what happens to a county zoning violations lien judgment? Do they get wiped off at foreclosure if they are junior & if they are senior?

Be careful with County Zoning Violations on a property. You need to read through them carefully because they usually involve building code or zoning code violations from construction on the property. My understanding is this (and I could be wrong, don’t take this to the bank): The actual recorded lien judgment or fine amount (the dollars) do not belong to the property and are wiped off the secured property during foreclosure of a senior lien (the first trust deed). However, the County can continue to try to recover the fine from the personal owner. The larger problem is that the County has discovered big issues with the property and have registered the issues against the actual property. You are not required to pay the fine, but you are now officially notified that you have to correct the situation. Here is an example of something I was looking at: Recorded County Code Violation (recorded after the 1st TD) for an amount of $250,000 against the owner. I pulled the lien and called the County inspector on the lien. Turns out the owners had re-graded a protected canyon slope behind the house without permits. The County was very nice about explaining everything. As a new owner, I would be required to hire an environmental engineer, submit plans and restore the entire canyon slope back to original condition (who knows what that would have been? ) and THEN plant new natural landscaping to prohibit erosion. Needless to say, I stayed away from that one! It is still lingering as a bank-owned property that has never come back out for sale on the market. Fri Oct 28th 2011 at 10:45am

Thank you so much for the detail explanation. If county filed a monetary judgment of $17000 in regarding to a zoning violation because the previous owner was using the property as 'junk yard" If the got a monetary judgment of $17K does that mean that county people came out spend time to clean up & then file a judgment of default? How would that effect me if i purchase the property & this judgment was junior to the trust? Fri Oct 28th 2011 at 10:57am

If the judgment was recorded AFTER the date of the foreclosing Trust Deed, $17,000 will not be your responsibility - it is against the prior owner. If you clean out the entire property and it is no longer a ‘junk yard’, then you should be OK. You may want to call the County and ask them to come back and re-inspect the property just to make sure the issue is no longer recorded in their code violation books against the property. Just be sure you do not have any other possible code violations on the property that they can catch while re-inspecting. Fri Oct 28th 2011 at 1:33pm

Would a credit line deed of trust would loose its seniority if gets modified later on ? For example a credit line deed of trust was recorded in 1/1/2005 . Then there is a junior lien gets recorded in 2/1/2005. Then on 1/1/2006 credit line deed of trust(the one originally recorded 1/1/2005) gets modified & gets recorded on 1/1/2006. Now this would still be senior? Sun Oct 30th 2011 at 6:55pm

Hi Tariq, A recorded modification would not change the lien position of the original deed of trust. The only way that the lien position would change would be through a subordination or a reconveyance of the original deed of trust. Michelle Tue Nov 1st 2011 at 2:22pm

Thanks . What do you mean by “a reconveyance of the original deed of trust”. Would the correction in the deed consider being a reconveyance of the original deed of trust? Tue Nov 1st 2011 at 2:28pm

The modification would NOT be considered a reconveyance. You will usually see the modification reference the original deed of trust. I do suggest reviewing a copy of the modification of the deed of trust so that you are crystal clear. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out with the new HARP program. Michelle Tue Nov 1st 2011 at 3:52pm

Does anybody know what does postponement of mortgage mean? is it similar to Subordination agreement ? If it is what is the difference between them? Tariq Tariq Thu Jun 6th 2013 at 4:44pm