Judgment liens in Maine

What to file, and where

Creating a Maine lien on land takes an act in a named office, and then a letter most creditors would not think to send.

Filing an execution issued by a Maine court, or an attested copy, with a registry of deeds within 3 years after the execution issues creates a lien on the debtor's interest. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A¹ says so. Those three years run from issuance, not from the registry's stamp.

Then there is the letter. The lien becomes void as to the debtor and the debtor's other creditors unless the creditor notifies the debtor by certified or registered mail, sent to the last known address, on or before the 20th day after filing or recording. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A again. Mail nothing within 20 days and a perfected lien is not a lien against anyone who matters.

What it reaches

The registry lien reaches land. Personal property needs a separate filing in a separate office.

A lien filed with a registry of deeds reaches land, but not real estate that is exempt from attachment and execution. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. That exemption carves a hole in the lien from the moment it attaches, and the largest piece is the residence, covered below.

Personal property is its own act. Filing the execution, or an attested copy, with the Secretary of State within 3 years creates a lien on the debtor's non-exempt personal property of a type a financing statement filed there could perfect a security interest in. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. Land goes to the registry; the property a UCC filing would catch goes to the Secretary of State.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

Two durations live in the same statute, split by one date. September 1, 2020.

Liens created on or after September 1, 2020 last 10 years from the filing or recording of the writ of execution, unless the judgment is paid, discharged or released. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. One created after September 21, 2001 but before that cutoff lasts 20 years. So the age of the lien, not the age of the case, tells you which clock you are reading.

Each may be renewed once, for another term of the same length, by filing or recording a renewal, pluries or alias writ of execution the same way the original went in, with the same notice to the debtor. For a post-2020 lien, a renewal recorded before the original 10 years end relates back to the original filing date and prevents the lien from expiring. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. File it after the term runs and there is nothing left to relate back to.

One renewal. Not two. When the renewed term ends, the statute offers no third writ, which is worth reading beside how long a judgment lien lasts in states that let a lien roll indefinitely.

Land in another county

The lien's reach is tied to the registry where it is filed.

Reach is tied to the registry where the lien is filed: it covers the debtor's real estate against which a mortgage filed in that registry would be perfected. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. The statute measures reach by the registry, not by naming counties. Where a mortgage there would need its own recording, so does the lien.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Here the residence exemption is the hole in the lien, and its edges are set by dollar amounts, by age, and by one kind of judgment it does not stop.

Exempt from attachment and execution is the debtor's residence, except to the extent it was fraudulently conveyed, subject to the limits in the subsection. 14 M.R.S. 4422(1)². The figures written in the statute are a starting point the statute itself adjusts every 3 years, so read them beside the adjustment in the next paragraph. The printed figure is $80,000 of the debtor's aggregate interest in property used as a residence, in a cooperative that owns such property, or in a burial plot; it rises to $160,000 where minor dependents have their principal residence with the debtor, and a jointly held interest is capped at the lesser of $80,000 or the debtor's fractional share times $160,000. 14 M.R.S. 4422(1)(A). For a debtor or dependent who is 60 or older, or unable to engage in substantial gainful employment because of a disability that has lasted or can be expected to last at least 12 months or result in death, the printed figure is $160,000, with a joint interest capped at the lesser of $160,000 or the fractional share times $240,000. 14 M.R.S. 4422(1)(B).

Those printed numbers are not the numbers in effect. Every 3 years the section adjusts itself by the change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, Annual City Average, for the Northeast Region, as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, beginning April 1, 2024. 14 M.R.S. 4422. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court publishes each adjustment for an April 1 effective date the following year, rounded up to the next $50. So the live amount is whatever the court last published.

Two edges matter to a creditor. What a debtor may claim is fixed at the exemption in effect on the date the lien was recorded, not the date the debtor files the claim. 14 M.R.S. 4422(1)(E). And the exemption does not apply at all to judgments based on torts involving other than ordinary negligence. 14 M.R.S. 4422(1)(D). Something worse than carelessness reaches a residence the statute otherwise shields. For the fifty-state view, see homestead protection, state by state.

Where the records live

Two offices and one deadline on paper that does not sit in any register.

Land liens live in the registry of deeds for the place the property is recorded. Personal property liens live with the Secretary of State. Both are created by filing the execution within 3 years of issuance, under 14 M.R.S. 4651-A, and both are keyed to the filing date.

No mark in either office is left by the 20-day notice. It is a letter to the debtor's last known address, and the record will not show whether it went out. 14 M.R.S. 4651-A. A searcher sees a perfected lien, with no way to tell from the register whether the one act that keeps it good against other creditors ever happened. Whether a Maine execution lien stands against a given debtor is a question for counsel with the file, and this page hands that decision back. Compare how other states create the lien in the state-by-state view.