Judgment liens in Arkansas

What to file, and where

In the county where a judgment was rendered the lien reaches land, but it is conditioned on the records being kept in a form the public can find.

Start with Ark. Code 16-65-117¹. A judgment of the Arkansas Supreme Court or a circuit court, or of a federal district or bankruptcy court sitting in Arkansas, is a lien on the defendant's real estate in the county of rendition from the date it was rendered. There are two conditions. First, the rendering court's clerk must keep a permanent office in that county where the judgment records are continuously maintained. Second, the judgment must have been filed with the circuit clerk.

A district court judgment follows a stricter rule. It is no lien on land in its own county until it is filed and indexed in the judgment records of that county's circuit clerk, under Ark. Code 16-65-117. And where the rendering court keeps no permanent office with permanent judgment records in the county, even a higher court's judgment is no lien on land there until a certified copy reaches that circuit clerk. One office is the common thread. Everything runs through the circuit clerk.

Timing splits for a stranger to the judgment. As to a person without actual notice, the lien runs not from rendition but from the date the court clerk records and indexes the judgment in a manner that gives the public reasonable notice. That rule sits in Ark. Code 16-65-117. And for this statute, "judgments" include an order or decree for the support and care of children paid through the registry of the court.

What it reaches

A judgment lien attaches to the defendant's real estate, with one exemption large enough that it drives the rest of this page.

Consider first the one tract a judgment usually cannot touch. The homestead of an Arkansas resident who is married or the head of a family is not subject to the lien of any judgment or decree, nor to sale under execution or other process on it. Ark. Code 16-66-210(b)² says so, and Article 9, section 3 of the Arkansas Constitution says the same thing at the constitutional level. Two sources, one rule.

This exemption is not absolute. It yields to a short list under Ark. Code 16-66-210(b). A judgment for the purchase money is one. So is a specific lien, a laborers' or mechanics' lien for improving the homestead, or a claim for taxes. Last come claims against executors, administrators, guardians, receivers, attorneys for moneys they collected, and other trustees of an express trust for money due in that capacity. Acreage and value figures appear below, because the homestead is the part of Arkansas collection that surprises creditors the most.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

A judgment lien runs ten years from the date of the judgment, and it is revived by one named procedure or not at all.

The lien continues in force for ten years from the date of the judgment, and it may be revived only under section 16-65-501, per Ark. Code 16-65-117. Revival turns on a writ of scire facias. The plaintiff or the plaintiff's legal representatives may sue it out at any time before the lien expires, under Ark. Code 16-65-501(a)³. It is then served on the defendant, on a legal representative, on a terre-tenant, or on whoever occupies the land. It may be directed to any Arkansas county, under Ark. Code 16-65-501(b).

The deadline is hard. No scire facias may issue except within ten years from rendition, or, if the judgment was previously revived, within ten years from the order of revivor. That cutoff is Ark. Code 16-65-501(f). When the writ is served or published and no defendant or interested person appears to show cause against revival, the judgment is revived and the lien continued for another ten years, and so on as often as necessary, under Ark. Code 16-65-501(d). One decade at a time, a lien can outlast the person who won it.

Two timing rules are worth holding separately. If the scire facias is sued out before the lien terminates, the revived lien relates back to the day the writ issued, under Ark. Code 16-65-501(e). But do not borrow a date from elsewhere: anything that tolls or renews the section 16-56-114 limitations period for the underlying judgment does not revive or extend the lien, per Ark. Code 16-65-117. The lien keeps its own clock. For the wider pattern, see how long a judgment lien lasts and how to renew it.

Land in another county

Land elsewhere feels nothing from a lien in the county of rendition until a certified copy travels to that county's circuit clerk.

In any other county the judgment is no lien on the defendant's land until a certified copy is filed with the clerk of the circuit court where the land lies, under Ark. Code 16-65-117. On that filing and payment of $3, the clerk dockets and indexes the judgment as though it had been rendered in that county's own court, and from that moment it is a lien on the defendant's lands there. The filing act is cheap. Skipping it costs the whole lien.

Revival carries the same warning across county lines. Unless a notice of the revival action is recorded in the real property records of another county before the judgment expires, a scire facias to revive is not effective in that other county, and a recorded judgment lien may not be revived against real property there, under Ark. Code 16-65-501(g)(1). Otherwise, a transcript of a judgment of revivor filed in another county has the same effect there as it has where it was rendered, except as section 16-65-501 provides, per Ark. Code 16-65-117. Revive it at home, and the land one county over may already be free.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

The exemption has measured limits, and they are small on paper and large in effect, because value floors cannot shrink the acreage.

Outside any city, town, or village, a homestead owned and occupied as a residence consists of no more than 160 acres with its improvements, selected by the owner, under Ark. Code 16-66-210(c)(1). Inside a city, town, or village, it is no more than 1 acre, under Ark. Code 16-66-210(c)(2). Rural land annexed to a city keeps its rural exemption as long as the land stays rural in nature and has a significant agricultural use, under Ark. Code 16-66-210(c)(3).

The dollar figure is the part that reads oddly. Outside town, a homestead may not exceed $2,500 in value, yet it may not be reduced below 80 acres, without regard to value, under Ark. Code 16-66-210(c)(1). In a city, town, or village the same $2,500 cap applies, but the homestead may not be reduced below one-quarter of an acre, under Ark. Code 16-66-210(c)(2). So the value cap bends to the acreage floor, not the other way around. For how other states draw this line, see homestead protection, state by state.

Where the records live

One office holds the Arkansas judgment lien together, and knowing which one tells a searcher where to look.

One office of record holds the lien. For a Supreme Court or circuit court judgment, and for a federal district or bankruptcy judgment entered in Arkansas, the lien attaches in the county of rendition only when the clerk keeps a permanent office with permanent judgment records there and the judgment has been filed with the circuit clerk, under Ark. Code 16-65-117. District court judgments reach land only after being filed and indexed in that same circuit clerk's judgment records.

Where no such permanent office exists in the county, the lien waits on a certified copy filed with that county's circuit clerk, and timing against a stranger runs from the date the clerk records and indexes the judgment so the public has reasonable notice. Both rules live in Ark. Code 16-65-117. So the question a searcher asks is not which court decided the case. It is what the circuit clerk's index shows, and on what date. For the national picture, see how a judgment becomes a lien across the states.