Judgment liens in Missouri
A Missouri money judgment becomes a lien from the day it is rendered, but only if the right court entered it, and only in the county where that court sits. This page states what the statutes provide. It is not legal advice, it speaks only to liens on real estate, and whether any of it reaches your debtor's house is a question for counsel with the file open.
What to file, and where
In Missouri the attaches by force of the judgment itself, provided the court that entered it is one the statute lists.
Judgments entered by the supreme court, a United States district or circuit court held in Missouri, a district of the court of appeals, a circuit court or a probate division are liens on the debtor's real estate in the county for which or in which the court sits. RSMo 511.3501 names those courts and, in the same breath, excepts the associate, small claims and municipal divisions. So the court that entered the judgment decides whether there is a lien at all.
The associate division judgment is the trap. Its judgment is not a lien on real estate until it is filed with the clerk of the circuit court under the two sections RSMo 511.350 points to, 517.141 and 517.151. Such a judgment can be good and enforceable and still touch no land until that filing happens.
A map of the United States with Missouri highlighted. Missouri is marked as a state where a judgment entered by a listed court becomes a lien by its own force on real estate in the county where the court sits. All other states and the District of Columbia are drawn as not shown.
What it reaches
Two divisions produce no lien at all, and the lien that does arise reaches land the debtor does not own yet.
Small claims judgments and municipal division judgments never constitute liens on real estate. RSMo 511.350 says so flatly. A creditor holding one of those is holding something, but not a hook on the debtor's land.
For the liens that do attach, the reach is wider than the deed on file the day of judgment. RSMo 511.3602 extends the lien to real estate acquired after the judgment is rendered as well as to what the debtor owned when it was rendered. Buy a house with a Missouri judgment already sitting against you, and the lien is waiting for it.
How long it lasts, and renewing it
Ten years from the day the judgment is rendered, and runs on a procedure with an older name than most creditors expect.
A Missouri judgment lien commences on the day of rendition and continues for ten years, subject to revival. RSMo 511.360 fixes both ends. That duration rule applies only to judgments rendered or revived after August 28, 1998; for anything entered before that date the same section cuts the lien to three years from the day it commenced. Two different clocks live in one statute, and the dividing line is a single day in 1998.
Revival runs on a scire facias. The plaintiff or the plaintiff's legal representative may, at any time within ten years, sue out a scire facias to revive the judgment and lien. RSMo 511.3703 draws the hard edge: after ten years from the rendition of the judgment, no scire facias may issue. That window does not reopen. How long a judgment lien lasts, and how to renew it sets this beside the other states' clocks.
Land in another county
A lien under RSMo 511.350 reaches only the county where the court sits, and reaching land elsewhere takes a second filing.
By its own force the lien attaches to the debtor's real estate situated in the county for which or in which the court is held, and nowhere else. RSMo 511.350 draws that county line. Land one county over is untouched until something is filed there.
That something is a transcript. Under RSMo 511.440(1)4, a judgment of the supreme court, any district of the court of appeals, any United States court or any Missouri court of record becomes a lien on the debtor's real estate in another county when a transcript is filed with the clerk of that county's circuit court and indexed. That transcript is entered in the record the clerk keeps under section 511.500, and RSMo 511.440(2) requires the entry to name and locate the court that rendered the judgment, so the other county's record shows where the judgment came from.
Homestead here, in one paragraph
Missouri exempts a from attachment and execution up to a dollar figure that will surprise anyone who has seen a Missouri home price.
The homestead of every person, meaning the dwelling house, its appurtenances and the land used with it, is exempt from attachment and execution together with its rents, issues and products, up to a stated value. RSMo 513.475.1 sets that ceiling at fifteen thousand dollars. That is the whole of the protection, and it is a figure.
Co-owners do not multiply it. Under RSMo 513.475.1, the exemption is not allowed for more than one owner if one owner claims the entire amount, and where more than one owner claims it their exemptions together may not exceed the total allowed for any one homestead. Homestead protection, state by state puts that fifteen thousand next to its neighbors.
Where the records live
Which office holds the record follows the court that entered the judgment.
For circuit court and probate division judgments and the others RSMo 511.350 lists, the lien lives in the county where the court sits. For an associate division judgment, the lien waits on the filing with the clerk of the circuit court under RSMo 517.141 and 517.151, the sections RSMo 511.350 points to. To carry a lien into another county, the transcript goes to the clerk of that county's circuit court under RSMo 511.440(1).
Nobody writing this is a lawyer and none of it is advice. Which division entered a judgment, and whether its lien is alive or expired, are questions for counsel reading the court file. How a judgment becomes a lien, in all fifty states and DC shows where Missouri sits among the rest. What a page can do is narrower: it can tell you which clerk to ask and which clock to count.
Sources
Every section named above, with how current the text we read was. Read any of them yourself.
- RSMo 511.350, Civil Procedure and Limitations § 511.350. Liens on real estate established by judgment or decrees in courts of record, exception--associate circuit court, procedure required--no administrative amendments. Read the section, opens in a new tab Back
- RSMo 511.360, Civil Procedure and Limitations § 511.360. Commencement, extent and duration of lien--applicability of duration of lien. Read the section, opens in a new tab Back
- RSMo 511.370, Civil Procedure and Limitations § 511.370. Scire facias to revive, may issue, when. Read the section, opens in a new tab Back
- RSMo 511.440, Civil Procedure and Limitations § 511.440. Transcript of judgment a lien in another county, when--procedure. Read the section, opens in a new tab Back