Judgment liens in North Dakota

What to file, and where

A lien starts with a docketing act, done by the court, not by a creditor at a recorder's window.

On filing the judgment roll for a money judgment, the clerk of the district court where it was rendered dockets the judgment in a separate record called the judgment docket. That record's name, and the clerk's duty to make the entry, come from N.D.C.C. 28-20-13¹. So on filing of the roll, the clerk makes the entry that matters.

One entry is the hinge. Everything after it, the reach, the clock, the renewal, runs from the day the clerk docketed the judgment in the county where it was rendered.

What it reaches

Once docketed, a judgment reaches the debtor's real property in that county, present and future, with one carve-out.

A docketed judgment attaches to all the debtor's real property except the homestead, in any county where it is docketed, both what the debtor holds at docketing and what the debtor acquires there afterward. N.D.C.C. 28-20-13 says so in the same breath as it creates the lien. One part people miss is the after-acquired reach: a debtor who buys land in the county later buys it with the lien already waiting.

Out goes the homestead, and it stays out. More on that below, because the lien statute names it as the one carve-out.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

One date splits North Dakota judgments into two different clocks: August 1, 2021.

Docket a judgment after August 1, 2021 and it is a lien for twenty years from docketing in the county where it was rendered, a term set by N.D.C.C. 28-20-13(3). Docket one before that date and it lasts ten years from docketing, under subsection (2). Same statute, and the difference turns on nothing but when the clerk made the entry.

For judgments initially docketed before August 1, 2021, a renewal by affidavit is available. Such a judgment may be renewed by affidavit of the judgment creditor, or the creditor's personal representative, agent, attorney, or assignee, within ninety days preceding the expiration of ten years from the first docketing. That window is fixed by N.D.C.C. 28-20-21². Miss it and the affidavit route this section opens is not available.

For a judgment rendered in a court of this state and initially docketed before August 1, 2021, the affidavit goes to the clerk of court where the judgment was first docketed, and the clerk files a copy in each county where the judgment was transcribed, as the creditor requests. N.D.C.C. 28-20-22³ directs that filing. For the longer story on clocks and renewals elsewhere, see how long a judgment lien lasts.

Land in another county

A lien does not travel on its own. It reaches land in a second county only when the docket is carried there.

To reach land elsewhere, file a transcript of the original judgment docket with the clerk of the district court of that other county, and the judgment is docketed there. N.D.C.C. 28-20-13 provides for it. A judgment docketed in one county does nothing to a quarter-section two counties over until the transcript is filed where that land sits.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

One carve-out is named by the lien statute, and three sections hold the homestead off the reach of a creditor.

Any individual residing in North Dakota, married or unmarried, has a homestead. It is the land the claimant resides on and the dwelling on it, with appurtenances and all other improvements, the total not to exceed one hundred fifty thousand dollars in value over and above liens or encumbrances. N.D.C.C. 47-18-01⁴ draws that boundary. It may not embrace different lots or tracts unless they are contiguous, which the same section defines as tracts sharing a common point, or that would share one but for an intervening road or right of way.

An exempt homestead is beyond judgment lien and beyond execution or forced sale, except as otherwise provided in chapter 47-18. N.D.C.C. 47-18-01 says it plainly, and N.D.C.C. 28-22-02⁵ lists the homestead among the property absolutely exempt from all process, levy, or sale. And the lien statute itself repeats the carve-out: under N.D.C.C. 28-20-13(3) a judgment docketed after August 1, 2021 reaches all the debtor's real property except the homestead.

Chapter 47-18 is not set out in full here, so the exceptions that chapter allows are outside what this page can state. For how other states draw the same line, see homestead protection state by state.

Where the records live

A record to ask for has a name, and it is held by the court.

That separate record, the judgment docket, is kept by the clerk of the district court in the county where the judgment was rendered. N.D.C.C. 28-20-13 names it. Pull that entry for the docketing date, because the date on the judgment docket is the one the clocks above run from. For the same question across every jurisdiction, see how a judgment becomes a lien, state by state.