Judgment liens in Ohio

What to file, and where

The act that creates the lien is a filing, and it happens in one office.

An Ohio judgment becomes a lien on the debtor's lands and tenements in a county from the moment a certificate of the judgment is filed with the clerk of the court of common pleas of that county. Ohio Rev. Code 2329.02¹ says so, and it reaches judgments of any court of general jurisdiction in the state, including a federal district court. The judgment in the court file does nothing to the land until the certificate is filed.

That certificate is not a bare notice. It sets out, among other things, the amount of the judgment and costs, and the rate of interest if the judgment provides for interest, with the date from which that interest accrues. Ohio Rev. Code 2329.02 lists those contents.

What it reaches

Most land answers to the certificate filed with the clerk. Registered land is the exception, and it answers to a different office.

Registered land is the exception. A judgment is not a lien on land registered under the land registration chapters until a clerk's certificate or a certified copy of the judgment is filed and noted with the county recorder where the land sits, and a memorial is entered on the register of the land's last certificate of title. Ohio Rev. Code 2329.02 sets that out. Two offices, then, depending on the kind of land.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

A five-year clock runs on the lien, kept alive by acts of enforcement rather than by time alone.

An Ohio judgment not in favor of the state becomes dormant and stops operating as a lien unless, within five years from the judgment or its latest renewal, one of four things happens: an execution is issued, a certificate of judgment is issued and filed, an order of garnishment is issued or continuing, or a proceeding in aid of execution is commenced or continuing. Ohio Rev. Code 2329.07(B)² sets the clock and the acts. For a judgment in favor of the state the clock runs ten years from the judgment or its latest renewal, or fifteen from the last execution, whichever is later, under 2329.07.

Renewal in that section is not a separate filing with a new name. Under Ohio Rev. Code 2329.07, renewal of the judgment means the occurrence of any of those same listed acts. So a creditor who keeps enforcing keeps the clock running, and one who does nothing watches it go dormant.

Once a judgment has gone dormant it can be revived, which is a different procedure. Ohio Rev. Code 2325.15³ allows a dormant judgment to be revived in the manner prescribed for reviving actions before judgment, or by action in the court that rendered it or in which its transcript was filed. That window is finite. An action to revive can be brought only within ten years of dormancy under Ohio Rev. Code 2325.18(A)⁴, with an extension for a party who was a minor, of unsound mind, or imprisoned when the judgment went dormant.

Revival does not restore the dead interest. Interest does not accrue and is not computed from the date the judgment became dormant to the date it is revived, under Ohio Rev. Code 2325.18(B). And Ohio Rev. Code 2325.17⁵ provides that, if sufficient cause is not shown to the contrary, the judgment stands revived and may thereafter operate as a lien on each debtor's lands and tenements for the amount the court finds due and unsatisfied. Those years were lost. The judgment was not.

Land in another county

Ohio is filed county by county, and each county keeps its own clock.

Ohio is filed county by county. An Ohio judgment reaches the debtor's lands in any county of the state from the time a certificate of the judgment is filed with the clerk of the court of common pleas of that county, under Ohio Rev. Code 2329.02. So a certificate filed in Franklin does nothing to a parcel in Hamilton until a certificate is filed in Hamilton too.

Each out-of-county lien then carries its own dormancy rule. Where a judgment became a lien in another county by filing a certificate there, it ceases to be a lien in that county, under Ohio Rev. Code 2329.07(C), unless within five years (fifteen for a judgment in favor of the state) an execution is issued, a certificate is filed in that county, a garnishment is issued or continuing, or a proceeding in aid of execution is commenced or continuing. That section does not say from what date those five years run, and this page will not supply one.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Ohio protects a residence by amount, and that amount is printed in the statute and then moved by a separate process.

Every person domiciled in Ohio may hold the property Ohio Rev. Code 2329.66(A)⁶ lists exempt from execution, garnishment, attachment, or sale to satisfy a judgment. The residence is on that list. For judgments other than those for health care, Ohio Rev. Code 2329.66(A)(1)(b) protects the person's interest, not exceeding the figure written in the statute, in one parcel or item the person or a dependent uses as a residence.

That printed figure is one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, and it does not stay there. On April 1, 2010 and every third April after, the Ohio judicial conference adjusts each dollar amount in the section for the increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers over the preceding three years, rounded to the nearest twenty-five dollars, under Ohio Rev. Code 2329.66(B). So the printed number is the floor the statute set, not the number in force today.

Medical debt behaves differently. For money owed for health care services or supplies, Ohio Rev. Code 2329.66(A)(1)(a) does not stop a judgment lien from being created on the property. It delays enforcement until the property is sold or transferred to someone other than the debtor's surviving spouse or surviving minor children, and it exempts the person's interest up to one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars from that lien. The lien attaches. It just has to wait.

Where the records live

Two offices hold what a searcher needs, and which one depends on the land.

For ordinary land, the lien lives with the clerk of the court of common pleas of the county where the parcel sits, created when the certificate of judgment is filed there under Ohio Rev. Code 2329.02. That certificate carries the amount and costs, and the interest rate with its accrual date. For registered land, the record lives instead with the county recorder and on the register of the last certificate of title. A fuller comparison of these filing acts sits in the state-by-state survey, and the dormancy and revival rules run alongside the page on how long a lien lasts.