Monday, April 29, 2024

Liens: What They Are And How They Work

lien on a house

It may seem odd, since no one asks for a lien on their property. But anytime you finance the purchase of a piece of property with a loan, you are voluntarily giving the lender the right to a lien. If you buy a home and stop making your payments, you can expect the bank to enforce their lien.

Voluntary liens

lien on a house

With ultra-low rates at your fingertips, the power to secure your future is just a click away. The amount of time it takes to remove a lien from your property depends on how quickly each party acts and how the parties wish to remove the lien. Victoria Araj is a Section Editor for Rocket Mortgage and held roles in mortgage banking, public relations and more in her 15+ years with the company.

What is a Lien? Types of Property Liens Explained

You can find out if a property has any liens on it by performing a title search. For several hundred dollars, you can hire a title company to conduct a search. However, many types of liens do put your property at risk, so it’s important to get them resolved as soon as possible.

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Can a Florida HOA put a lien on your house? firstcoastnews.com.

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For example, mortgages or property tax liens are attached to the real property on which the mortgage or taxes are owed. Personal property such as a car might have a lien on it if the owner is still paying off the auto loan they used to purchase the vehicle. Judgment liens can generally be attached to both real and personal property. Creditors may place different liens on a property based on the circumstances. Mortgages and home equity loans involve voluntary liens that you opt into, while tax liens, judgment liens, and contractor’s liens are involuntary.

Judgment Lien

If the lien isn't valid, you can request a court order to have the lien removed. You must provide evidence to prove that the lien is unlawful or invalid. Remember that liens are a matter of public record, so the information is not confidential. By obtaining a mortgage or home equity loan, you’re agreeing to use your home as collateral. Your lender places a lien on your home, removing it only when the mortgage is paid off.

Mortgage Lien

Liens must be paid off before the property can be sold or refinanced. Consider a homeowner with a mortgage who wants to refinance their home. Refinancing a mortgage involves replacing the existing mortgage with a new one, often to take advantage of lower mortgage rates or reduce monthly payments. Liens on the property must be satisfied before the refinancing can occur. Each has specific legal requirements for their establishment, enforcement, and release.

Before you close on a home, your attorney or title company should perform a title search to make sure the title is free of liens, back taxes, and other claims. Don’t skip the title search, since it’s the best way to make sure no one else has a claim to the property. There may be some confusion about how liens affect your credit score and which ones actually show up on your record. Some mechanic’s liens and judgment liens are reportable, which means they often end up on your credit report. That’s because they factor into your repayment history which makes up more than a third of your credit score. Now let’s take a look at the “yes.” A lien of any other kind is generally bad for the homeowner.

A bank takes out a lien when a borrower is advanced a mortgage, making this a voluntary lien. For involuntary liens, a creditor may seek legal recourse by filing a lien with a county or state agency if a borrower defaults on a loan or other financial obligation. Liens can be placed by a contractor, a government agency, or another kind of creditor.

How creditors collect payment through a lien

The most straightforward way to remove a lien from your property is to satisfy the debt. Once you have paid it off, you can file a Release of Lien form, which acts as evidence that the debt has been satisfied. You can remove a lien by satisfying the debt, negotiating with the creditor, or challenging the validity of the lien in court.

At trial, they can present evidence as to why the claim should not be enforced. And in many states, if the claim is dismissed, the owner may be awarded court costs and attorney’s fees. An enforcement action for a mechanics lien must be initiated within a certain timeframe or its no longer valid.

This secures and protects the debt owed to us and notifies creditors of the debt. An unpaid lien can affect a homeowner in several ways, and none of them are good. You could lose your property if a sale is forced due to an unpaid lien. Plus, your credit rating can take a serious hit, since judgment liens and mechanic’s liens are reportable to the credit bureaus, and factor into your repayment history.

The car dealer where you buy your car, for instance, may have a lien on your vehicle and nothing else. A home lien is a legal claim on physical property (a house) by a creditor. Working with a title search company is the most expensive but often the least time-consuming and most thorough way to check for property liens. You won’t have to visit government websites, make phone calls, pull credit reports, drive to the county recorder’s office or wonder whether you’ve missed something.

For instance, if a creditor has placed a lien on your home over unpaid dues amounting to $20,000, and you sell the house for $200,000. In this scenario, the homeowner satisfies the existing lien from the old mortgage with funds from the new mortgage. When a homeowner fails to pay property taxes to a local government, the municipality can place a lien on the property to ensure future payment.

If you can’t find records online, you can take a trip to your local tax assessor’s and county clerk’s office to pull reports for the property in question. Try to see if your tax assessor’s and county clerk’s office have a database where you can search for tax and property records. Homeowners may deal with different types of liens based on the kind of debt they face. Agents may also place a lien on a property when their clients don't pay commissions.

Any time an individual working on a project gets paid, they should be required to execute a lien waiver for the amount they’ve been paid. When bonded off, the claim is still valid and intact, but it will be enforced against the bond — not the property. But let’s take a step back and look at the actual definition of a lien. Working with an adviser may come with potential downsides such as payment of fees (which will reduce returns). There are no guarantees that working with an adviser will yield positive returns.

On the other hand, a lien is beneficial for creditors or workers such as contractors. This is because liens protect their rights, ensuring they receive due compensation for work performed for a homeowner. Liens are important because they can prevent property owners from borrowing against or selling their homes. In some cases, lienholders can even initiate foreclosure proceedings and sell the property to recoup their money.

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