What Does It Mean To Have A Judgement Lien With Register Of Deeds

What is a Judgment Lien and How Could It Affect Your Belongings?

When it comes to purchasing commercial existent manor belongings, determining who owns the belongings is not almost every bit straightforward every bit it may seem. Although an individual or a business concern may exist the official owner, at that place could exist liens on the belongings that complicate the owner's interests and serve as a threat to ownership.

When individuals are owed money and accept non been paid, they may stake a merits in terms of a lien confronting the debtor's real estate. The holding functions as a grade of collateral against the debtor. If the owners of property try to sell, they will not be able to without either paying the debt or having the new owners assume legal responsibility for information technology.

These liens can take many unlike forms, and they don't e'er have to practise with the property. While some liens, like mortgages, relate specifically to the property and are considered voluntary liens (meaning the debtor agreed to the lien), others are unrelated to the property and imposed by third parties. These types of liens are involuntary in that the debtor did not cull for the title to the property to be encumbered past the lien.

Involuntary liens may include things like back taxes, unpaid child back up and judgment liens, which exist when a person has been ordered past a courtroom — either by a verdict or settlement — to pay a certain amount of coin to some other person. If the debtor does non pay, the person who won the judgment might decide to file a lien against the debtor's property in the hopes of somewhen collecting the amount of the judgment from the sale of the debtor'south belongings.

Judgment liens are mutual when individuals do non pay for a judgment made confronting them. From a creditor's standpoint, they are relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to obtain. One simply files the judgment with the Recorder of Deeds and it becomes part of the ownership records of the domicile. Unless the debt is paid off prior to the sale of the real estate, it will function to detract from any proceeds the owner might collect after it is sold. Even if the property changes hands, the judgment lien will go on to encumber the title to the property.

It is important to make certain a property does not accept whatever liens on it before y'all buy or sell. This can be done through the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds, although occasionally the records exercise non deliver consummate results. If you desire a thorough championship search done on the property, work with a skilled Washington, D.C. existent manor chaser at Tobin, O'Connor & Ewing.