Real estate liens attach to the property, and do not follow the debtor when she transfers ownership of the property to someone else. Liens do, however, appear on the property title. Mortgage companies require a title search before closing on a home sale. If a title search turns up outstanding liens against the property, the mortgage company can refuse to finance the home purchase.
A single - is a hyphen used when you are joining words (e.g. off-site) or when separating syllables or prefixes (e.g. pre-election). aration. A double -- is a dash and is used as a punctuation mark--when one is trying to separate a parenthetical expression--in sentences. There are more uses for both hyphens and dashes.
It is quite common to see a hyphen used in place of dashes (usually because it is simply faster and easier to type), but this should be avoided, especially for em dashes. Using hyphens for too many purposes can result in a very confusing sentence. However, if you do use hyphens instead of em dashes (for instance, if you are using a typewriter and cannot form an em dash), just use two hyphens in a row, as in: