Section 96.300 of the L.A.M.C. mandates any pending violations, liens, and or open fees be disclosed to a new buyer prior to the close of escrow.

This means the property is located in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ) of the State of California and thus subject to mandatory inspections. If the warning is listed on the report then there are open liens/direct assessments and/or pending violations for the property that need to be taken care of before the sale closes.

YES. If the property is located in the VHFHSZ of the State of California it is subject to mandatory inspections and may have direct assessments/liens or pending violations that have not been recorded yet. These will become the responsibility of the new owner if they are not cleared prior to the close of escrow.

Single Assessor Parcel Number (APN) requests are usually answered within fifteen (15) business days starting from the day we receive the complete package by FAX. Multiple APNs will take longer to research (20 Business Days) depending on the number of APNs. Requests received after 3:00 PM, on holidays or weekends, will be recorded as received on the next business day, which will be the start date for processing.

NO. Rush service/expedited processing requests will not be entertained. The time frame is required to fully complete the research as there are various databases that we have to go through MANUALLY and contact various departments to get the requested information. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. Please submit all requests in a timely manner.

Send an email to lafd.brushdemand@lacity.org to confirm that we received your request and the request’s scheduled completion date. You may contact us by email if you do not hear from us by expected completion date. Please DO NOT email us for status request on the file before the scheduled completion date as this SLOWS down the process and can cause delays on getting the information you need. Multiple status requests received from multiple email addresses will automatically place a HOLD on the file until we get clarification that you are not trying to submit new information for the file

If you’ve submitted a second request then it is safe to assume the second request you submitted has now replaced the first request we received from you. Multiple requests for the same APN or any duplicate requests will be considered REVISED requests and the date the new request is received will be used for the starting wait time. If the Owner or Realtor submit requests after you have submitted your request the newest request will take the place of any request that has been previously submitted. Please communicate with all parties involved so that there are no extra requests submitted that can cause DELAYS on our response time

Direct assessments, pending liens, violations, or unpaid fees that were not cleared prior to the close of escrow will become the responsibility of the new owner. These fees/liens follow the property and not the owner on record at the time of the violations. The seller and buyer should be made aware of these fees/liens, so they understand the financial risk.

NO. The warning on the 9A is not only for the current year. If it is listed on there it means there is either a Substandard Lien, a pending violation or a direct assessment that was never taken care of by the owner at the time he acquired the property or for the length of time he has owned it.

If the property was not cleared of any Fire Notices when the current owner bought the property then the property was bought “as is” which means any and all liens/open balances/pending violations the property has in its record are now the responsibility of the current owner. These types of violations follow the property not the owner on record at the time of the violations.

You can have the current owner pay for this or pay it at the close of escrow. You will need to discuss with the seller and buyer and come to an agreement. Send payments to the address listed on the email you received the documents in.

Send us an email for clarification, so we can check the property information that was made available to you. If it has already been cleared or not for this year you will be given an estimate of how much the fees will be so that you can HOLD them from the seller’s proceeds until the invoices are ready.

Invoices for the pending fees for the Current Brush season have not been generated yet so you will need to make arrangements and keep these funds until there is a bill issued that we can apply it to. You will either need to hold enough money from the sale proceeds to cover the invoices once they are generated or make arrangements with the seller and the buyer to cover the invoices once they receive them in the mail. Since these invoices have not been generated yet, LAFD Brush Billing Unit will not have an invoice to apply the payment to if you were to send a check now for payment. The check will be returned to the sender and the violations would remain on the property.

Depending on when the payment was made and how it was made will determine how soon the warning is removed from the 9A. Usually it takes anywhere from 30-60 days for the databases to be updated. Please email us to make sure your payment was received and applied. LAFD is the only department that can remove LAFD Liens from the property’s record. This is the same process for the lien releases that have no money due as well.