Judgment liens in Iowa

What to file, and where

In the county where the judgment was entered, Iowa asks a creditor to record nothing at all to reach land.

A judgment of Iowa's appellate or district courts, or of the federal circuit or district court within the state, is a lien on the real estate the defendant owned when it was rendered and on real estate the defendant acquires later. Iowa Code 624.23¹ says so, and names no recording act for the home county.

The lien attaches in the county where the judgment was entered in the clerk's judgment docket and lien index, from the date of that entry. For land in any other county nothing attaches until an attested copy of the judgment is filed with the clerk of the district court where that land lies. Both rules sit in Iowa Code 624.24². One county comes free with entry. Every other county is a separate trip.

What it reaches

The lien in Iowa Code 624.23 has two holes written into it, and a creditor who ignores either can hold a lien that attaches to nothing.

A discharge in bankruptcy closes the forward reach. If the defendant's personal liability on the judgment has been discharged under federal bankruptcy law, the lien does not attach to real estate the defendant acquires afterward. That carve-out is in Iowa Code 624.23.

The homestead is the second hole, and the larger one. An Iowa judgment lien does not attach to real estate occupied as a homestead under chapter 561, except as section 561.21 provides or where the claimed homestead exceeds the limits in sections 561.1 through 561.3. All of that is in Iowa Code 624.23.

Even where a lien does reach a claimed homestead, there is a short fuse. A claim of lien against real estate claimed as a homestead is barred unless execution is levied within 30 days after the defendant, the defendant's agent, or a person with an interest in the land serves written demand on the owner of the judgment. Those 30 days are fixed by Iowa Code 624.23. A demand starts a clock the creditor did not set.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

An Iowa judgment lien lasts for 10 years from the date of the judgment, under Iowa Code 624.23.

Whether that 10 years can be extended, for example by a new judgment in an action on the judgment, is a question Iowa Code 624.23 does not answer, and this page will not guess at it. Counsel reads the clock before it runs, not after. For the shape of the question across the country, see how long a judgment lien lasts, and how to renew it.

Land in another county

The home-county lien is automatic. Everything outside it is a filing.

For real estate in a county other than the one where the judgment was entered, the lien does not attach until an attested copy of the judgment is filed in the office of the clerk of the district court of the county where the real estate lies. That line is drawn by Iowa Code 624.24. A judgment entered in Polk does nothing to a farm in Story until the copy is filed in Story.

Judgments from outside the state wait longer still. A foreign judgment under chapter 626A, a foreign-country money judgment under chapter 626B, or a tribal court judgment under chapter 626D does not attach as a lien until any challenge to it under its chapter has concluded and the district court finds it entitled to recognition. Only then does the lien attach, on the date the clerk files an attested copy in the clerk's office for the county where the land lies. That sequence is set out in Iowa Code 624.24.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Every person's homestead is exempt from judicial sale where there is no special declaration of statute to the contrary, under Iowa Code 561.16³.

The count is one per household, not one per person. People who reside together as a single household unit may claim in the aggregate only one homestead exempt from judicial sale, and a single person may claim only one. A household unit means all persons of whatever ages, related or not, who habitually reside together in the same household as a group. That definition sits in Iowa Code 561.16.

How much the exemption covers is capped. Within a city plat the homestead must not exceed one-half acre; otherwise it must not contain more than 40 acres in the aggregate, under Iowa Code 561.2⁴. And where the value runs low, the statute runs the other way: a homestead worth less than 500 dollars, within a city plat or not, may be enlarged until it reaches that amount. Those chapter 561 limits are where the lien's homestead exclusion in Iowa Code 624.23(2)(a) points, so acreage and value are not trivia. They decide what the lien misses. For the wider map, see homestead protection, state by state.

Where the records live

What creates the lien is a court record, not a recorder's one.

That lien on real estate the defendant owns or later acquires arises from the judgment itself, under Iowa Code 624.23, and attaches through the judgment docket and lien index the clerk of the district court keeps. A home county is covered from the date of entry. Any other county needs an attested copy filed with its own clerk. So a search in Iowa starts at the courthouse, and a creditor who stopped at the home county may have left the debtor's other land untouched.