Judgment liens in Nebraska

What to file, and where

The lien starts with an act in the court file, not in the register of deeds.

In Nebraska the judgment binds the debtor's lands and tenements within the county where the judgment is entered, and only from the day the judgment is rendered. Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1504¹ says so. County of entry is the reach, and the day of rendering is the start.

Rendered has a definition, and it is the whole of the timing question. A judgment is considered rendered when it has been entered on the judgment index, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1504. So the day to ask about is the day the judgment hit the index, and the section does not name the office that keeps it.

What it reaches

Within that county the lien binds the debtor's land, with one estate carved out of it entirely.

Exempt from judgment liens is where the homestead sits. Neb. Rev. Stat. 40-101² puts it in those words: each natural person residing in the state has a homestead exempt from judgment liens and from execution or forced sale, up to the value and acreage the section sets. Everything else the debtor owns in the county is bound. This is not.

That exemption has edges, and the homestead section runs to a group of sections this page does not reach past 40-116. The figure and the acreage are kept in their own section below, because the number is the part a creditor reads first.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

The lien dies on a clock measured by execution, not by years on the face of the judgment.

Five years, counted from execution. A judgment of a court of record becomes dormant and ceases to operate as a lien if execution is not sued out within five years after the date of entry, or if five years pass between the last execution issued and the suing out of another writ. Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1515³ sets that clock. It resets on execution, not on anything a creditor files to mark the anniversary.

Revival is possible, and the window is ten years. Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1420⁴ lets a dormant judgment be revived in the same manner prescribed for reviving actions before judgment, but only if the action to revive is commenced within ten years after the judgment became dormant. Whether revival restores the lien, and from when, is a question that section does not answer, so this page will not guess at it. For the general shape of how these clocks work across states, see how long a judgment lien lasts.

Three sections supply the manner of reviving, and all three were written for the death of a party. A revivor is made by a conditional order, of the court if in term, of a judge if in vacation, that the action be revived in the names of the representatives or successor and proceed in favor of or against them, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1406⁵. That order may be made on the motion of the adverse party, or of the representatives or successor, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1407⁶. An order made by consent revives the action at once; an order made without consent is served on the adverse party like a summons and returned in the same time, and the action stands revived if sufficient cause is not shown against it, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1408⁷.

Land in another county

One county is covered by the lien that runs from rendering. Land elsewhere is bound a different way.

Outside the county of entry, the trigger is seizure. All other lands of the debtor, along with goods and chattels, are bound from the time they are seized in execution, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1504. Not from rendering, not from the index. From seizure.

That is as far as this section goes. Whether a transcript filed in another county creates a lien there is a separate question, and no section here answers it, so this page leaves it where the statute left it.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

A dollar figure and an acreage make up the homestead exemption, and it is the one number a creditor should know before anything else.

One hundred twenty thousand dollars in value. Neb. Rev. Stat. 40-101 sets the homestead at a dwelling house the claimant resides in, with its appurtenances and the land it stands on, not exceeding that figure. Whether that number is adjusted is not stated anywhere this page can see. Acreage runs to one hundred and sixty acres selected by the owner outside any incorporated city or village, or at the claimant's option two contiguous lots within one.

Teeth come after the fact, not only before it. If the court finds land subject to the homestead exemption has already been sold on execution by the sheriff, the sale is set aside and the judgment creditor is assessed the costs of the sale and the hearing, unless the land sold for more than the homestead exemption, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 40-108⁸. A sale of an exempt homestead is unwound, and its costs land on the creditor. For how other states draw this line, see homestead protection state by state.

Where the records live

The date land is bound sits in the judgment index, and the section does not name the office that keeps it.

Land in the county of entry is bound from the day the judgment is rendered, and rendering means entry on the judgment index, both under Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-1504. So the record to ask for is the index entry, and the date on it is the day the lien binds.

Who keeps the index is a thing the section stops short of saying. That is the limit here. Nobody writing this is a lawyer and none of it is advice. Which recording date to ask about, and which clock is running against it, is what a page can tell you. Deciding what to do, and tracking the deadline, is yours. For the same question answered across the country, see how a judgment becomes a lien, state by state.