Someone placed a loan/lean on my house for $53,000 back in May 2005 that we did not know

Hello! My name is Dolan and thank you so much for contacting me! I just had a few quick questions for you: 1. Do you know if this a judgment lien? 2. If so, how old is the judgment?

I'm sorry to hear about that. So to clarify, do you know who the lienholder is? Is the lien a judgment lien? Mechanic's lien?

Understood! So you're just wondering what it is you can do here, correct?

Ok! Did you need to tell me anything else? If not, I can start with answering your question.

Ok! I've been working on an answer while we've been chatting, so it'll just be a moment.

I'm so sorry about this situation! I want to address your situation with a detailed response, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask because this law stuff can get complicated. The short answer? You may need to get a lawyer to seek what's called declaratory relief. Declaratory relief is a procedure whose purpose is to “set controversies at rest before they lead to repudiation of obligations, invasions of rights or commissions of wrongs.”  All this really means is that you are asking a court to determine definitively what each party’s rights, duties, and obligations are./ In your case, this means you'd petition a court to advise that you never had this loan, never received money for it, and that this lien was filed fraudulently. Because it was filed fraudulently, then it should be removed. With a court order, you can give that order to the county clerk and advise the clerk that a judge has ordered that it be removed. Some other non-court options would be to try to find out who owns the company and ask them for more information about this lien. You could ask them for any paperwork that shows whether you actually received the money from this loan. You can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau here - https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/so-how-do-i-submit-a-complaint/. You can tell the CFPB that you aren't an actual recipient of the loan and that this was filed fraudulently so they need to be investigated. Does that help clarify things? I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.

Ok you got it! I would talk to the lawyers about seeking a temporary injunction (court order) that allows you to have the lien removed until the case is resolved! If you can't get help through the bar, you can try other options: Yelp.com is a surprisingly good place to find lawyers, too. You can find a lawyer from the Metropolitan Lawyer Referral Service - http://www.lawyerlegion.com/lawyer-referral-directory/colorado/metropolitan-lrs/  You can go through the CO Legal Help Center - http://www.coloradolegalhelpcenter.us/ You can also find a lawyer on the Legal Services Corporation website. The LSC is an independent non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 1974 to help people find legal aid services (https://www.lsc.gov/what-legal-aid/find-legal-aid).  Sometimes, the local law schools can provide free legal assistance, too.  I know it’s a lot, but does that help make sense of things a bit more? I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.

Sure thing! Just come right back to this chat thread if you have questions! Easy as pie!