Judgment liens in Utah

What to file, and where

Real property and a judgment meet at the county recorder, and the identifying information has to travel with the judgment.

After July 1, 2002, a judgment entered by a district court, a justice court or the Business and Chancery Court becomes a lien on real property when the judgment or an abstract of it is recorded in the office of the county recorder, carrying the debtor-identifying information Section 78B-5-201 requires. That information can ride on the judgment or abstract itself, or come in a separate information statement of the judgment creditor. Both routes sit in Utah Code 78B-5-202¹.

Small claims judgments are their own case. For a small claims judgment entered before July 1, 1997, or after May 15, 1998, there is no lien on real property unless the judgment is abstracted to the district court and recorded. So says Utah Code 78B-5-202.

State agencies skip the recording. They are exempt, under Utah Code 78B-5-202, from the requirement to record a judgment or abstract with the county recorder. What that does to the reach of such a lien is a separate question, and the section does not answer it.

What it reaches

One county, present and future, holds the debtor's real property the lien reaches, for as long as the judgment runs.

Every parcel of the debtor's real property in the county where the recording happens falls under the lien, including property the debtor owned at the time and property acquired later while the judgment is effective. The reach is tied to the life of the judgment under Utah Code 78B-5-202, so land bought two years after recording falls under a lien recorded before it existed.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

Eight years from entry is the life of a Utah judgment, and keeping the lien past that point is two recordings in two different places.

Eight years from the date of entry is the run of a judgment, unless satisfied earlier or its enforcement is stayed in accordance with law. The clock in Utah Code 78B-5-202 runs from entry, not from recording. For how that compares elsewhere, see how long a judgment lien lasts.

Renewing the lien means going back to each recorder. To renew or extend a lien created by a recorded judgment, Utah Code 78B-5-202 requires a document renewing or extending it to be recorded in the county recorder's office of each county where an instrument creating the lien is recorded. Miss one county and the lien there is the one you forget.

Renewing the judgment itself happens in the courtroom, not at the recorder. Under Utah Code 78B-6-1802², part of the Renewal of Judgment Act, a court of record may renew a judgment on a motion filed within the original action before the statute of limitations on the original judgment expires, supported by an affidavit that accounts for the original judgment and every postjudgment payment, credit and adjustment. The affidavit's facts must be found accurate, the affidavit must affirm that notice went to the debtor's most current known address, the time to respond must have run, and the fee under Subsection 78A-2-301(1)(l) must be paid. Renewing the judgment and rerecording the lien are two separate acts.

Land in another county

Nothing in one county's recording touches land in the next, and reaching another court is a separate step.

Only the debtor's real property in the county where the judgment or abstract is recorded falls under the lien. The line in Utah Code 78B-5-202 is drawn at the county, so a debtor with a house two counties over is untouched until something is recorded there too.

There is a mechanism for moving a judgment into another court. An abstract of judgment issued by the court that entered it may be filed in any court of the state, and then has the same force and effect as a judgment entered in that court. That is Utah Code 78B-5-202, though the lien on land still comes from recording with the county recorder.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Against a judicial lien and a forced sale a Utah homestead stands, with named exceptions and a dollar figure that moves every year.

Exempt from judicial lien and from levy, execution or forced sale is the homestead, except for the obligations the subsection lists. The protection and the carve-outs sit together in Utah Code 78B-5-503(3)³: statutory liens for property taxes and assessments, security interests and judicial liens for the purchase price, judicial liens for failure to support dependent children, and consensual liens from mutual contract. No exemption may be claimed at all for property acquired as a result of criminal activity, under Utah Code 78B-5-503(2)(d). And under Utah Code 78B-5-503(5)(a), conveying a homestead does not expose it to any lien it would not face in the owner's hands.

The larger exemption attaches to a primary personal residence, which Utah Code 78B-5-503(1)(c) defines as the dwelling or mobile home where the individual and the household live, plus the surrounding land up to one acre reasonably necessary for its use. That one acre is the whole of the surrounding ground the exemption carries.

Printed dollar figures in the statute are a starting point, not the current number. Under Utah Code 78B-5-503(2)(a), an individual is entitled to $42,000 in value for a primary personal residence, or $5,000 where the property is in whole or in part not the primary residence. Jointly owned property gives each owner an exemption under Utah Code 78B-5-503(2)(b), capped at $84,000 per household for a primary residence and $10,000 per household otherwise. But Utah Code 78B-5-503(2)(e) ties every one of those amounts to May 14 through December 31, 2019, and directs the state auditor, from 2020 on, to recalculate each by multiplying it by the average Consumer Price Index number, dividing by 251, rounding to the nearest 100 dollars, and publishing the result on the Office of the State Auditor website by January 1. What controls is the published figure, and it is not the figure in the book. For how other states draw the line, see homestead protection state by state.

Where the records live

A lien is created at the county recorder, and the court is where the judgment and its renewal live.

At the office of the county recorder the lien is made, where a judgment or abstract entered after July 1, 2002, is recorded with the debtor-identifying information Section 78B-5-201 requires. State agencies are the exception, exempt under Utah Code 78B-5-202 from the requirement to record with the county recorder. To see how Utah sits among the other filing-act states, see how a judgment becomes a lien, state by state.