Judgment liens in Connecticut

What to file, and where

In Connecticut a judgment reaches land through one recorded document, and the office is a town, not a county.

A judgment lien securing the unpaid amount of a money judgment, interest and costs included, is placed on real property by recording a judgment lien certificate, signed by the creditor or the creditor's attorney or personal representative, in the town clerk's office of the town where the property lies. Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a¹. That office is the town, not the county.

There is a way to borrow an earlier date. If the lien is placed within 4 months of judgment on real property that was attached earlier in the same action, the lien holds from the date of the attachment, provided the certificate carries a clause identifying that attachment. That rule lives in Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a. Without that clause, the lien dates from the recording, under the same section.

What it reaches

In Connecticut the lien bites on the debtor's interest, and no more, in the property the certificate names.

From the time the certificate is recorded, the money judgment is a lien on the judgment debtor's interest in the real property the certificate describes. That language sits in Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a. What it reaches is the debtor's interest, and the land it reaches is the land on the page.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

In Connecticut the clock runs from the judgment rather than from the recording. It comes in two lengths.

In Connecticut a judgment lien expires 20 years after the judgment was rendered, or 10 years for a lien recorded on a small claims judgment, unless within that time the lienholder begins an action to foreclose it and records a notice of lis pendens on the land records of the town where the property is. See Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a. Both the foreclosure and the lis pendens have to happen inside the period.

Whether anything else stretches a Connecticut judgment lien past those years, apart from the foreclosure and lis pendens route, is a question the statute here does not settle, and this page will not guess at it. For how renewal works where it is spelled out, see how long a judgment lien lasts, and how to renew it.

Land in another county

Connecticut keeps its land records by town, which changes the search.

Connecticut records the certificate in the town clerk's office of the town where the real property lies. Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a. A debtor with property in three towns is a debtor searched in three town clerks' offices, and a certificate recorded in one town does nothing to land in the next one.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

A Connecticut homestead carries a dollar exemption that sits ahead of a judgment, and the figure splits by what the judgment is for.

A homestead is exempt to the value of 250,000 dollars, value being the fair market value of the real property less any statutory or consensual lien on it, except that, for a money judgment arising out of a claim of sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor, sexual assault or other wilful, wanton, or reckless misconduct committed by a natural person, the value is 75,000 dollars. Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-352b(21)². That figure is measured on equity, not on the asking price.

Homestead here means owner-occupied real property, a co-op or a mobile manufactured home, used as a primary residence, under Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-352a(5)³. Exempt means not subject to any form of process or court order for the purpose of debt collection, under Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-352a(3). For the figure in other states, see homestead protection, state by state.

Where the records live

One office holds the lien, and it is the same one named at the top of this page.

A judgment lien certificate, signed by the creditor or the creditor's attorney or personal representative, is recorded in the town clerk's office of the town where the real property lies. Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-380a. That is where a title search finds it.

Nobody writing this is a lawyer and none of it is advice. Whether a particular Connecticut judgment can reach a particular house, and what the homestead leaves standing, is a question for counsel with the file open. What a page can do is narrower. It can tell you which document to record, and the name of the office that stamps it. For the fifty-state picture, see how a judgment becomes a lien, state by state.