AND

STATUTORY LIENS

IN CALIFORNIA

AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT.

THE LAW OF MORTGAGES, PLEDGES, MECHANICS' LIENS,
VENDORS' LIENS, AND OF OTHER CONTRACT AND STATUTORY
LIENS; DEALING ALSO WITH THEIR ENFORCEMENT BY AC-
TION, BY ACT OF THE LIENOR, OR BY OTHER PROCEEDINGS.

BY

CHARLES M. BUFFORD.

SAN FRANCISCO:

BANCROFT-WHITNEY COMPANY,

LAW PUBLISHERS AND LAW BOOKSELLERS.

Copyright, 1903

BY

CHARLES M. BUFFORD.

SAN FRANCISCO:

THE FILMER BROTHERS ELECTROTYPE COMPANY,
TYPOGRAPHERS AND STEREOTYPERS.

PREFACE.

My object in writing this book has been to state the California law of liens systematically, in as concise language as a detailed presentation of the subject would permit.

In case of liens against trespassing animals, however, the details of the law are omitted, on account of its bulk and unimportance; and in case of local assessments the purposes for which the assessments are levied are so varied and the conditions under which the liens accrue so divergent, that only some of the general principles of constitutional law applicable to all assessments and some of the more general rules regulating all assessment liens are presented.

Liens recognized by the general admiralty law being outside its scope, this book treats merely of those liens, maritime and nonmaritime, established against vessels by the laws of California.

The nature and decisiveness of the authorities which sustain the text are set forth and illus.

trated by copious notes referring to statutes and decisions.

This book has been called "Contract and Statutory Liens," because the phrase is familiar; yet in the pages which follow the term "lien" is used in its original sense of a security imposed by operation of law, the broader expression, Encumbrances Created for Security Only, being used to designate both contract and statutory securities. CHARLES M. Bufford,

San Francisco, July 1, 1903.