Question: The Buyer purchased vacant land with a small
down payment and with seller carryback financing for the balance
of the purchase price. The buyer had bad credit, and the seller
required the buyer’s father to personally guarantee the promissory
note and deed of trust for the seller carryback financing. The
buyer’s mother did not sign the personal guarantee. The buyer’s
mother and father have been married for more than forty years.
After closing the buyer discovered environmental problems on the
vacant land, and has now stopped making payments on the seller
carryback financing. Is the father liable under the personal guarantee
for the delinquent payments on the seller carryback financing?
Answer: If the beneficiary deed provides that your son
and daughter each have an undivided 50% tenants-in-common interest
in the condominium, upon your death technically either one can
sell their 50% interest to a buyer. As a practical matter, however,
no buyer wants to buy only 50% of a condominium with a stranger
being the other 50% owner. Therefore, if only one of your children
wants to sell the condominium after your death, the other will
have to agree to sell, or the court will order that the condominium
be sold with the sale proceeds after cost, divided 50-50.
