Attorney Lien: Fill & Download for Free

I'm not an attorney but I was a contractor for several decades.This isn't legal advice, it is merely the considerations I would (and did) address with my attorney when I faced a similar situation decades ago.There are folks who will file such liens in the hopes that you'll think it easier and cheaper to just pay them, than it is to fight in court.First and foremost we protected the sale by bonding the Lien. This is a process where you deposit in a Bond enough to cover the lien. That process separates the lien from the sale of the property.Next (and this specifically applies to California and Oregon your state may vary) we reported him to the Contractors’ License Board for filing a fraudulent Contractor’s Lien because he wasn't a licensed contractor and didn't have the legal standing to file such a lien, and we filed an answer to the lien stating that fact and the fact that state law explicitly prohibits someone working for pay on real property without such a license.Because he wasn't a licensed contractor and there were no records because I had not agreed to any such work, nor even talked to him about doing any work for me (e.g.: invoices, checks from me, my signature on any agreement for work to be performed, etc.) the state went after him for being an unlicensed contractor who was illegally (by his own assertions in the lien filing and a lack of any contractor’s license ever) working for pay on real property ($5,000 fine per occurrence). Since he listed eight separate dates and times in his lien filing those fines amounted to $40,000 which was about $20k more than he demanded in the lien.The state also went after him for filing a fraudulent lien which at the time held a penalty of the face value of the fraudulent lien ($20k) plus any jail time at between 90 days and a year.In my case simply reporting him to the license board solved my problem. I still had to go through the formalities of court to have a judge declare the lien voided but I got my entire bond back and was only out of pocket about $650 for the bonding costs and court fees.All told he went from a theoretical “easy $20k payday" to being well over $70k in the hole.

Question: There is a mystery lien on my property (NJ). I paid property off. I can't get in touch with the people who placed it there. I don't know who they are. What do I do next?Contact an attorney.If you don’t know who might have placed a lien on your property then it may have occurred when someone who is attempting to defraud you (or a large number of people) decided to file one. An attorney can track down the filer and if he or she cannot locate them, they can file a dispute with the county to have the lien declared to be invalid.The sooner that you do this, the better. The longer the lien remains on your property the more damage it might cause to your credit rating while also impairing your ability to sell the property or transfer it to your heirs, if any.J Mixon is creating Writing | PatreonBecome a patron of J Mixon today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for artists and creators.https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18000931

The juxtaposition of these questions indicates that we may not have the full story. Therefore, the answers you receive on Quora may lead to disastrous results.Lawyers do have an ethical duty to respond to clients on a reasonable basis and to keep clients informed of significant case developments. Lawyers can be disciplined for violating these ethical requirements. Now, that said, some clients attempt to contact their lawyers multiple times a day or expect instant return calls and emails when the lawyer is in trial or even on vacation. I don’t know what the case is here.A client always has the right to contact the opposing party or the opposing party’s attorneys. Lawyers are not allowed to contact an opposing party that is represented by attorneys. That means you can speak directly to the other side. If you attempt to contact the other side’s attorneys, they will immediately refuse to talk to you and will immediately notify your own attorney of the contact. This doesn’t get you into any trouble, it’s done to protect the opposing counsel to establish that they did not initiate the contact with you nor did they pursue it.In a few cases over the years, my clients would decide to contact the opposing attorney. Whenever I got the opposing attorney’s email, I considered it a “5 alarm fire” In the case. I immediately contacted the client by every means possible to find out what the hell the client was thinking and why the client was not following my written instructions. This is one way to get instant communication from your attorney, but I strongly recommend against it.The wording that “We want to settle with opposing counsel” is suspiciously cryptic. Is there an offer on the table that you want to accept? That requires immediate action and attorney non-communication in this situation is a serious ethical infraction. If the offer is withdrawn and you recover less, you may have a very good malpractice case against your own attorney.But it could be that you want to settle and the opposing side refuses to settle. Many clients blame their own lawyer when the other side won’t accept what clients thinks is a reasonable settlement. A case that’s not settling may be in stasis awaiting a trial date and that means no action for several months and nothing for the attorney to report. This situation may explain why the lawyer is not in contact with you. The lawyer should have advised you that nothing will happen until [trial date] in several months. This is not necessarily right, but that may be what’s happening.I can’t give you advice because, as you can see, there aren’t enough facts to make any definitive answers.Now, to address the attorney’s lien. This is a serious red flag. I can’t tell whether you are the plaintiff attempting to receive money or the defendant who is attempting to pay money in this matter. An attorney’s lien is put in place when an attorney represented the plaintiff was not paid. The lien means the attorney must be paid before the plaintiff receives the settlement funds. The current plaintiff’s attorney must pay all liens out of the settlement before the plaintiff receives any part of the settlement. This means that all medical bills, hospital bills and attorneys’ bills must be paid. It happens from time to time that a plaintiff changes attorneys in the middle of the case. The discharged attorney will file an attorneys’ lien.Here’s an example of how an attorney’s lien may work. Plaintiff hires attorney A to sue for injuries arising from traffic accident. Two months before trial plaintiff switches attorneys and hires attorney B. Attorney A files an attorney’s lien on the case. Case settles just before trial for $100,000. First, the medical bills of $30,000 must be paid. Attorney A’s fee is one third of recovery, or $33,000. Attorney B’s fee is also paid in the amount of $33,000. The net $4,000 is paid to plaintiff. Obviously, plaintiff will be very very unhappy in this situation. From the defendant’s side, it’s very difficult to settle cases entangled with attorney liens. Most plaintiffs who realize they will get next to nothing in a settlement are inclined to just try the case.The combination of attorney non-communication, settlement aspirations that are not clearly described and the presence of an attorney’s lien may be signs that the case is in serious trouble and that’s why it can’t be untangled on Quora. I can say it is likely to be disastrous to speak with opposing counsel yourself.I can only recommend that you retain the services of a local attorney and pay for a 2 hour consultation. That attorney should be able to give you a good overview of this case. If your current lawyer is uncommunicative, that attorney can readily solve that problem. That attorney can also discern the settlement prospects and the effects of the attorney lien for you and on the case. I do believe you need legal advice to resolve this matter but Quora isn’t the place to receive that advice.