Q: My mother recently passed away. She lived in a condo in Salem, Mass., and faithfully paid her mortgage. But it turns out the condo has an outstanding “zombie mortgage” held by the previous owners, who didn’t disclose it during the sale. That mortgage owner tried to foreclose on the previous owners’ loan. Fortunately, my mother had title insurance, which should have found the issue during the sale, but didn’t. My sister and I are forced to continue paying the mortgage since we can’t sell the property with a cloud on the title. What can be done to settle this issue?

A: Unfortunately this is a tricky issue that can take time to sort out.

Zombie mortgages are typically second mortgages that originated before the housing crash in 2008. After the crash, many lenders and investors stopped making an effort to collect mortgage debt because the home value had fallen below the amount of the loan, leading borrowers to believe the debt was gone. The lenders or investors waited until property values bounced back and loan interest grew, then attempted to collect or foreclose on properties.

It’s regrettable that this lien wasn’t discovered before your mother closed on her condo. It seems that no one performed a thorough title search, and now you are bearing the burden.

When mortgage services go dormant and fail to try to collect on a loan, they can be in violation of federal laws. In a case last year, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office reached a settlement with a mortgage servicer that had not properly notified second-mortgage borrowers that they still owed money, nor given them statements or engaged in foreclosure prevention measures.

There is also pending legislation in Massachusetts concerning zombie mortgages that calls for further penalties on servicers who haven’t followed the law.

Hopefully, hiring your own attorney will help you understand the process and what is in your best interest in this situation, said Andrea Bopp Stark, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. Unfortunately, as you’re finding out, the process can take months or years to resolve.

In a situation like this, it is possible that the previous owners did pay the debt but the mortgage was never discharged, said Adam Deutsch, a consumer rights attorney in western Massachusetts. You can look at your mother’s HUD-1 settlement statement to see what creditors were paid during the transaction. Title insurance could then cover the cost of the petition to have the mortgage discharged.