Lien laws for Indiana, help!!

I need help!!

My mom purchased a 2 acre parcel in Indiana on August 14, 2006. There is a mobile home on the property that is owned by a company named Green Tree. She put a lien on the mobile home on February 15, 2007 and is charging them $300 per month for storage fees. She has contacted them several times about moving the mobile home and paying the storage fees but they have not complied.

She wants to know how long the mobile home can sit on her property before she can legally claim possession of it. She even offered to purchase it and the lady she was dealing with told her it was sold on two occasions. As of today, it is still sitting on her property but now claims to have sold the mobile home. Can they legally do this with the lien she placed on the home?

Any help and/or advise on this matter will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Carynm

Best bet here is to contact a real estate attorney in your area with specific questions. You're in a bit of a complicated situation there in that you need to know who is currently in title, whether or not there's an existing first lien already in place,and whether or not your mother's lien was properly recorded against the title. (Unless, of course you already have researched that.) Different transfer statutes apply depending on whether or not the manufactured home is already permanently affixed to a foundation or if in fact it's still on the original trailer and the hitches are still attached. From what you've described, it's a manufactured home on a leased lot and your mother needs specific guidance on this.

If there's an existing first lien in place (from a bank or mortgage company for example, it's not possible to simply "take possession." Any subsequent liens already have been subordinated (or will be subordinated) and will only be paid or released if sufficient funds from the sale or transfer are available. If that home is sold in the future, your mother's lien for unpaid rents may or may not be paid off in full .. you won't know that unless you can run a search on the current title.

Just out of curiosity, has the mobile home been adequately maintained by the company who claims to own it? If it's been allowed to fall into disrepair or represents a safety or health concern, your city or county may be of some help here. Your mother is under no obligation to maintain the home, only her property and if needs be, you can try to involve city/county with health or city code violations. If the company has neither paid rent or removed the mobile home from your mother's property in nearly a year, you pretty much have a "squatter" on your hands now .. again, city/county may be more willing to become involved with that being the case. The home could conceivably be condemned and eventually removed or demolished, depending on its condition.

Again, I'd suggest your mother contact an attorney before she takes any actions on her own. While I'm not remotely suggesting she tolerate the situation any longer, she needs to make certain any actions she takes in the future doesn't end up costing her more than the unpaid rent she's already owed.

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck.

Thank you for your response! She has contacted 2 attorneys and is waiting to hear back them. The mobile home had been foreclosed upon and they were trying to sell it. The lady my mom was dealing with is not very nice and she made things more difficult by lying to my mom's lender while she was trying to get a loan to purchase the home. She has now requested to only deal with the lady boss, so hopefully this will all get resolved soon! Thank you again for your reply!

Carynm

Has your mom approached the bank involved in the foreclosure in lieu of the actual owner? They might be interested to know a qualified buyer is seriously bidding on the home .. they may not even be aware an offer has already been presented. If you can locate the particular bank/mortgage company involved and contact them directly, it may be possible to work something out. It may sound a bit out of the norm, but I believe it's certainly worth a phone call. Quite a few lenders are holding "bad paper" (i.e. defaulted mortgages and foreclosures) and it only stands to reason they'd be interested in recouping at least a portion of the monies still owed. At the very least, the bank can let you know if it's possible to proceed and how to do it.

A final thought here: if your mom is trying to get financing on a foreclosed manufactured home, you may want to see what she can do to get this done as quickly as possible. Fewer and fewer reputable lenders are offering financing on manufactured homes, particularly ones in foreclosure and she may want to make sure her lender is still loaning on them. As recently as late last week, some lenders have announced they will no longer offer financing.

Again, good luck.