A disabled neighbor of ours found out we were selling our house in Onondaga County NY. The short story is, he put a lien on the house claiming he worked on it. He never wrote what he did (which somehow the County clerks ignored), so it's hard to enforce the 'you need a license for that work'. The lien amazingly enough, for a guy in a wheelchair who used to visit us for attention, lifts to the grocery store etc.. is $10,000, I kid you not. He's not a contractor, he can't get out of his wheelchair, but the county 'sustained his right to file the fake lien'. We know about bonding the lien. But that holds up our resources at the end of the sale for a whole year. WHO in this county can we reach out to? The clerks who took the fake lien, even the lawyer for the clerks office were all no help at all.. EVEN though they know the man (he's an alcoholic). Even though he didn['t fill out the lien correctly (It's a mess.. he never said what work he did, and 2x he put his own name where the lien asks 'who did you do the work for). (PS.. He is not a contractor, and filed this without a license. (how is that possible?) he lives on Social security, who may want to know about his 'earnings'. We did call the police, and will have a police report in a day or so, because when this man was drunk, he let slip that he's done this before. He may be a serial extortionist for all we know. Maybe he gets a $1,000 or so, just so people can get him off their back, and out of their closings... What can we do?
New York law favors the llienor. However, you may file a demand for a statement under section 38 of the lien law. he has to tell you exactly what what work he did and the pricing. I suggest that you follow that procedure. YOu may also want to file a demand that he foreclose. if he fails to respond to either, you may have the lien dismissed.