Judgment liens in District of Columbia

What to file, and where

The lien starts at a filing act, in a named office, on the day it is recorded.

Any final money judgment or decree of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, or of the D.C. Superior Court, becomes a lien on the debtor's estates in land from the date it is filed and recorded in the office of the Recorder of Deeds. That moment is fixed by D.C. Code 15-102¹. Not the date it was rendered, and not the date it was entered. Filed and recorded, with the Recorder of Deeds.

What it reaches

Almost every interest a debtor can hold in District land is reached, and one carve-out keeps the government out.

Under D.C. Code 15-102 the lien attaches to all the debtor's freehold and leasehold estates, legal and equitable, whether in possession, in reversion, or in remainder. It reaches a vested interest and a contingent one alike. An equitable interest is caught too, but it comes with a condition: a lien on an equitable interest may be enforced only by an action to foreclose.

Property owned by the District government, or by any of its independent agencies or instrumentalities, stays out of reach. So does property in which they hold an interest, to the extent of that interest. D.C. Code 15-102 says so. Where the District's stake begins, the lien stops.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

The lien lives as long as the judgment behind it, and the judgment runs on a twelve-year clock.

The lien continues as long as the judgment is in force, or until it is satisfied or discharged. That rule, in D.C. Code 15-102, does not say how long a judgment stays in force. D.C. Code 15-101² supplies the answer: a filed and recorded money judgment is enforceable by execution for twelve years only, measured from the date execution might first issue or from the date of the last order reviving it.

At the end of those twelve years the judgment ceases to have any operation or effect. After that, except for an enforcement proceeding already pending, no action may be brought on it and execution may not issue. It may not even be revived. The door closes that plainly under D.C. Code 15-101, and a creditor who let the clock run has nothing left to file.

Two things move the clock. Time during which a creditor is stayed from enforcing, by written agreement filed in the case, by other order, or by an appeal, is not counted against the twelve years. And an order of revival issued within twelve years of rendition, or of an earlier revival, extends the judgment with its lien and every remedy for twelve more years from the date of that order. That revival is granted by D.C. Code 15-103³. For how revival works elsewhere, see how long a judgment lien lasts.

Land in another county

With no counties, the District spares a search the split across many offices that other jurisdictions impose.

Any land, tenements, or hereditaments in the District are reached, wherever within it they sit. No internal line is drawn by D.C. Code 15-102. One Recorder of Deeds covers all land in the District, so a single recording reaches a house anywhere within it.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

The residence is exempt from execution, with named exceptions.

Property belonging to the head of a family or householder residing in the District, or to one who earns the major portion of his livelihood here regardless of residence, is free and exempt from distraint, attachment, levy, or seizure and sale on execution or decree of any court in the District. That exemption is granted by D.C. Code 15-501(a)⁴. Item (14) of the list names the residence: the debtor's aggregate interest in real property used as a residence, an interest in a cooperative that owns property the debtor or a dependent uses as a residence, and an interest in a burial plot.

Several limits are built into the protection. Nothing in the residence exemption impairs a deed of trust, mortgage, mechanic's lien, or tax lien on the property, by the terms of D.C. Code 15-501(a)(14). And under D.C. Code 15-501(b), exempt property is not exempt from attachment or execution for a debt due for the wages of servants, common laborers, or clerks. The exception keeps the wearing apparel, beds, bedding, and household furniture for the debtor and family out of that reach.

What dollar limit, if any, applies to the residence exemption is not something these statutes state. Item (14) names no figure here, and this page will not guess one. For how other jurisdictions set theirs, see homestead protection state by state.

Where the records live

One office, for all of it.

Filing and recording in the office of the Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia is what creates the lien. That office, and no other, is named by D.C. Code 15-102. It is the office to ask about, and the recording date is the date to confirm.