Do judgment liens survive bankruptcy

Listen instead

The same material, read aloud and told more loosely than it is written. Nothing is said in it that this page does not also say.

Two things that look like one

A discharge and a lien operate on different targets, and conflating them is the mistake this whole page exists to prevent.

A judicial lien is a lien obtained by judgment, levy, sequestration or other legal or equitable process, and a lien is a charge against or interest in property to secure a debt. 11 U.S.C. 101(36)¹ and (37) define both. That charge attaches to the land, not to the person.

A discharge voids a judgment only to the extent it is a determination of the debtor's personal liability on a discharged debt. 11 U.S.C. 524(a)(1)² says that much and no more. It operates as an injunction against any act to collect the debt as a personal liability of the debtor, under 524(a)(2). Read those two together and the target is the person, every time.

So the discharge erases what the debtor owes. Whether it erases the charge sitting on the house is a question the two sections above do not answer, and this page will not guess at the general rule.

Why exempt property can still carry a lien

Even property the debtor exempts, which is normally beyond prebankruptcy debts, keeps one kind of liability.

Property the debtor exempts is not liable, during or after the case, for debts that arose before it, unless the case is dismissed. 11 U.S.C. 522(c)³ states the shield, then lists the debts it does not cover. One of those exceptions is the whole subject here.

Under 522(c)(2)(A), exempt property stays liable for a debt secured by a lien that was not avoided under 522(f) or (g) or sections 544, 545, 547, 548, 549 or 724(a), and is not void under 506(d). Put plainly: a lien nobody knocked out survives against the exempt home. And a lien is not void merely because no one filed a proof of the claim, under 506(d)(2), so a creditor who stayed silent in the case does not lose the lien for that reason alone.

An allowed claim secured by a lien is a secured claim up to the value of the creditor's interest in the property, and unsecured for the rest, under 506(a)(1). Except as provided in 524(a)(3), the discharge does not affect the liability of any other entity on the debt, or that entity's property, under 524(e). A co-owner who did not file is not covered by someone else's discharge.

Cutting a judicial lien down with the exemption

The debtor has one tool aimed directly at a judicial lien, and it works through the exemption rather than through the discharge.

Notwithstanding any waiver of exemptions, the debtor may avoid the fixing of a lien on the debtor's interest in property to the extent the lien impairs an exemption the debtor would have been entitled to. 11 U.S.C. 522(f)(1) grants it. A judicial lien qualifies, except one securing a debt of a kind specified in section 523(a)(5), under 522(f)(1)(A).

Arithmetic settles the test. A lien impairs the exemption to the extent that the lien, plus all other liens on the property, plus the exemption the debtor could claim with no liens, exceeds what the debtor's interest would be worth with no liens, under 522(f)(2)(A). Where there is more than one lien, a lien already avoided is left out of the calculation for the rest, under 522(f)(2)(B). And none of this applies to a judgment arising out of a mortgage foreclosure, under 522(f)(2)(C).

Walk a number through it. Take a house worth 300,000 dollars, a 250,000 dollar mortgage, a 40,000 dollar judgment lien, and a residence exemption of 31,575 dollars in a case filed on or after April 1, 2025. Those three sum to 321,575 dollars, which exceeds 300,000 dollars by 21,575. So the lien impairs the exemption to that extent, so 21,575 dollars of it may be avoided and 18,425 dollars rides through. Avoiding a lien is not the same as discharging a debt, and the surviving slice is why.

How the debtor actually asks a court to do this, and whether the resulting order ever reaches the register of deeds, is not something the avoidance section settles.

Which exemption number even applies

The figure that enters the impairment test varies by state, because the debtor's exemptions turn on where the debtor lived.

An individual debtor exempts either the federal list in 522(d) or, in the alternative, the property in 522(b)(3), under 522(b)(1). That federal list applies unless the state law applicable to the debtor specifically does not authorize it, under 522(b)(2). Which state that is depends on where the debtor's domicile sat for the 730 days before the petition, with a fallback for a debtor who moved, under 522(b)(3)(A).

Florida residents are not entitled to the federal exemptions in 522(d), per Fla. Stat. 222.20⁴; the state's constitutional and statutory exemptions apply instead. New York runs the question through two sections that have to be read against each other: DCL 284⁵ says debtors domiciled in the state are not authorized to exempt the 522(d) property, while DCL 285⁶ says, notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of law, an individual debtor may opt for the section 522 exemptions. DCL 282⁷ then lists what a New York debtor may take. Where those sections leave a New York debtor on the federal list is not something this page will resolve.

Where the federal list does apply, the residence exemption in 522(d)(1) is a dollar amount adjusted every three years under 11 U.S.C. 104(a)⁸. It is 31,575 dollars for cases commenced on or after April 1, 2025, up from 27,900 dollars, per the Judicial Conference's 2025 notice. An adjustment never reaches a case already filed, under 11 U.S.C. 104(c). Whatever number held on the day they filed is the number that governs.

The land record after the case closes

A discharge and a county land record live in different offices, and getting the record to match the discharge is a separate step with separate rules in each state.

Florida lets the clock run first. At any time after 1 year from the discharge, the debtor, the debtor's receiver or trustee, or any interested party may petition the court that rendered the judgment for an order canceling and discharging it, under Fla. Stat. 55.145⁹. A certified copy of the discharge accompanies the petition, which is served on the judgment creditor like process in a civil action. If the hearing shows the debtor was discharged from the judgment or the debt behind it, the court shall order it canceled, and that order has the effect of a satisfaction and may be recorded the same way. This cancellation applies only to liens under judgments or obligations duly scheduled in the bankruptcy.

Michigan does it without a court step. A judgment lien is extinguished when a copy of the discharge and a copy of the schedule listing the judgment debt are recorded with the register of deeds, unless an order finding the debt nondischargeable has already been recorded there, under MCL 600.2809(6)(d)¹⁰. Louisiana routes it through a suit: a discharged debtor may sue the recorder of mortgages to have the judicial mortgage declared extinguished and the recordation cancelled, under La. R.S. 9:5175(A)(1)¹¹. But the Louisiana order expressly excludes any property in which the creditor proves equity, through the judicial mortgage, above superior liens, under La. R.S. 9:5175(A)(2).

Those are three states out of fifty. New York has its own procedure, and this page does not state it. Whether the lien is gone from the land is a question that starts the moment they file, which is the subject of the automatic stay.

What this page cannot tell you

One question, the one the reader arrived with, this page leaves to counsel on purpose.

Whether a particular unavoided lien rides through a particular bankruptcy and stays enforceable against a particular house is a question the sections quoted above do not answer. These Code sections tell you what the discharge voids, what keeps exempt property liable, and how a lien gets cut or cleared. They do not announce a pass-through rule in so many words, so neither does this page.

Nobody writing this is a lawyer and none of it is advice. Whether to move to avoid a lien, when to petition a court to clear the record, or how a state outside these pages handles it, is a question for counsel with the file open. What a page can do is narrower. It can tell you that the discharge and the lien are two different targets, and that the second one does not fall just because the first one did.