Also sorry to see anyone go through this. I hope you get good advice from the Attorney. Either way, I would not be in a hurry to write a bunch of checks.
Svelte had some good ideas for those who want to avoid this risk in the future.
A homeowner can ask for an escrow. It’s called a building fund control.
Dixieline does it. So do some some of the places that do real estate escrows. I know Bill, at Allison-McCloskey Escrow, told me they could do it, but that was a long time ago. http://www.dixieline.com/fundcontrol.html