Judgment liens in Delaware

What to file, and where

Delaware fixes the lien from an act rather than from a term, and the lien-duration statute names the court whose record carries it.

A judgment binds lands from the time it is actually entered or signed, and not by relation back to the first day of the term in which it is entered. 10 Del. C. 4702¹ says so. So the date to ask about is the stamp, not the calendar of the court term.

For money judgments, the lien-duration rule is written for those entered or recorded in the Superior Court, whether that court rendered them or they came from the Supreme Court, from a justice of the peace, from the Court of Common Pleas, or by a writ of testatum fieri facias. 10 Del. C. 4711² names that court and that record.

A Supreme Court judgment reaches the ground by a separate step. On receiving the remanded record with a certified copy of the Supreme Court's proceedings and judgment, the prothonotary of the court below files it without delay and enters it on the docket of the court below with the date of that entry. 10 Del. C. 4709³ fixes the date the entry carries. And a judgment on a verdict, if entered before the end of the term after the one in which the verdict was given, is deemed entered when the verdict was, and binds accordingly. 10 Del. C. 4703⁴.

What it reaches

Winning on appeal does not enlarge the lien.

Affirmance does not extend the lien to real estate the original judgment did not bind. 10 Del. C. 4710(b)⁵ says it plainly. An appeal confirms what was there; it adds no new ground.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

Ten years, then nothing, unless the lien is renewed inside the ten.

A Delaware money judgment entered or recorded in the Superior Court does not continue as a lien on real estate for more than 10 years after the day of entry or recording, unless the lien is renewed and continued within those 10 years. 10 Del. C. 4711 runs that clock. Where the money was not yet due at entry, the day it became wholly due and payable starts it instead. And no judgment that is a general lien, including judgments for costs and judgments for the State or a political subdivision, lasts past the 10-year period unless renewed for a further 10-year term under the same section.

Renewal is by a written agreement, not a court order. The plaintiff signs (or one of several plaintiffs, an assignee, the person to whose use the judgment was marked, or their executors or administrators), the defendant signs, and to bind land the defendant conveyed by deed of record after the judgment, the terre tenants sign. 10 Del. C. 4711. Under 10 Del. C. 4701⁶ a terre tenant is simply the grantee of the real estate as the last conveyance of record shows. Attorneys of record may sign instead, for the parties or for the persons interested. In substantially the form "It is agreed that the lien of this judgment shall be extended for the term of 10 years," the agreement is filed in the prothonotary's office and minuted and certified by the prothonotary on the record. 10 Del. C. 4711. A scire facias will do the same work.

Once the agreement is minuted and certified on the record of the original judgment, or final judgment is entered for the plaintiff on the scire facias, or the Supreme Court enters final judgment restoring and continuing the lien, the lien continues for a further term of 10 years, unless sooner lost by final judgment of the Supreme Court. 10 Del. C. 4712⁷. Renewed this way, a lien may be renewed again by a like agreement filed and certified before the extended term expires, and so from time to time as often as is found necessary. 10 Del. C. 4712. There is no cap on the number of renewals, which is the unusual part. And if a scire facias is sued out before the 10 years end and they end while it is pending, the lien holds until the court finally determines the parties' rights or the writ is discontinued or dismissed. 10 Del. C. 4711. One thing ends the lien without warning: the tenth year arriving while nobody filed.

Land in another county

Out-of-county land is reached by a named writ, entered of record where that land sits.

Entered under 10 Del. C. 4709, a judgment has the same force and effect as a judgment of the court below, and its lien may be extended to lands and tenements in another county by a testatum fieri facias entered of record in the office of the prothonotary of that county. 10 Del. C. 4710(a). So the record that matters for out-of-county land is the one in the second county's prothonotary office, not the first.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Delaware's principal residence exemption lives inside bankruptcy and insolvency, and it carries exceptions.

In any federal bankruptcy or state insolvency proceeding, an individual debtor and/or the debtor's spouse domiciled in Delaware may exempt equity in a principal residence, real property or a manufactured home, on top of the other exemptions the title provides. 10 Del. C. 4914(c)(1)⁸. That exemption is capped at an aggregate of $200,000. 10 Del. C. 4914(c)(1). The section applies separately to each debtor in a joint case, yet the principal residence exemption still may not exceed a total of $200,000 in an individual or a joint case. 10 Del. C. 4914(d).

The exemption is not absolute. None of it may be exempted if the Bankruptcy Court determines, after notice and hearing, that the debtor owes a debt from a securities-law violation, from fraud or manipulation in a fiduciary capacity or in connection with the sale of a registered security, or from a criminal act, intentional tort, or wilful or reckless misconduct that caused serious physical injury or death in the preceding 5 years. 10 Del. C. 4914(e). For more on how states treat the home, see homestead protection, state by state.

Where the records live

This lien lives on a court record rather than a county deed book, and the record names its own date.

The lien dates from the actual entering or signing of the judgment, not from the term it fell in. 10 Del. C. 4702. For money judgments the record that carries the lien is the Superior Court's, whether the judgment was rendered there or transferred in from the Supreme Court, a justice of the peace, the Court of Common Pleas, or a testatum fieri facias. 10 Del. C. 4711.

For a Supreme Court judgment, the prothonotary of the court below enters the remanded proceedings and judgment on that court's docket, with the date of the entry. 10 Del. C. 4709. Entered before the end of the term after the verdict, a judgment on a verdict is deemed entered when the verdict was. 10 Del. C. 4703. So the question to put to a prothonotary is which date the record shows and whether a renewal has been minuted since. See how the two states this library charts in depth compare in the state-by-state view, and how the clocks run in lien duration and renewal.

Nobody writing this is a lawyer and none of it is advice. Whether to renew a Delaware lien before its tenth year, or to let it lapse, is a question for counsel with the file open. What a page can do is narrower. It can tell you the lien runs from the stamp. The clock is 10 years, and Delaware lets the lien be renewed by agreement as often as is found necessary.