Judgment liens in Wisconsin

What to file, and where

What creates the lien is an entry rather than a recording, and the entry carries one detail a creditor can lose.

In Wisconsin a money judgment is a lien on the debtor's real property in the county where the judgment is rendered, once it is properly entered in the judgment and lien docket and that entry shows the debtor's place of residence. Wis. Stat. 806.15¹ ties the lien to the entry and to the address together. Leave the address off and the lien is the thing at risk.

Entering the judgment is the clerk's work. When a judgment directing the payment of money is entered and the fee is paid, the clerk of circuit court enters it in the docket, alphabetically. That entry carries the debtor's full name and residence, the creditor's name, the creditor's attorney where the record states one, plus the date and time of entry and the amount recovered with costs, all under Wis. Stat. 806.10² (1).

An address can be fixed after the fact. If the judgment or the docket fails to give the debtor's place of residence, the judgment itself stays valid, and the creditor may at any time file an affidavit of the address with the clerk, who then enters it with the date and time under Wis. Stat. 806.10 (1)(a). Whether the lien held before that affidavit was filed is a question for counsel, because the lien statute asks for the address and this one does not say.

What it reaches

What the lien catches is land the debtor has now and land the debtor buys later, with two things left out.

Under Wis. Stat. 806.15 the lien reaches real property the debtor owns when the judgment is entered and real property the debtor acquires within the 10-year period, and it does not reach homestead property exempt from execution under s. 815.20. Later purchases are caught. A homestead is exempt from the lien of every judgment, and stays out.

The other line is a spouse's property. Such a lien does not attach to property held by the debtor's spouse or former spouse that the debtor does not hold, unless the conditions in s. 806.15(4) are met, and Wis. Stat. 806.15 points to its own subsection for when the exclusion lifts. Those conditions are specific, and whether a given spouse's land is reachable turns on reading them against the file.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

A judgment lien runs 10 years from entry, with two ways the clock stops and a separate 20-year limit on suing the judgment itself.

In Wisconsin a judgment lien lasts 10 years from the date the judgment is entered in the judgment and lien docket. Two events pause that clock, both in Wis. Stat. 806.15. When an appeal is pending and the stay bond or deposit has been given, the trial court may on motion direct the clerk to mark the judgment 'secured on appeal', and the judgment then ceases to be a lien while the appeal runs. When collection or sale is delayed by law and the creditor has a dated entry such as 'enforcement suspended by injunction' made on the docket, the delay after that entry does not count toward the 10 years.

Suing on the judgment is a separate clock. An action upon a judgment or decree of a court of record of any state or of the United States must be commenced in Wisconsin within 20 years after the judgment is entered, or it is barred, except as ss. 846.04(2) and (3) and 893.415 provide. Wis. Stat. 893.40³ fixes that bar. And an action on a Wisconsin judgment between the same parties cannot be brought at all without leave of the court, for good cause shown, on notice to the adverse party, which Wis. Stat. 806.23⁴ requires.

Here is the part that costs people money. These statutes give the lien 10 years and give an action on the judgment 20, and none of them says that suing on the judgment extends or renews the 10-year lien. Two clocks, running from the same entry, not plainly linked. What keeps the lien alive, if anything, is a question this page will not guess at, and the general treatment is in how long a judgment lien lasts.

Land in another county

A lien under s. 806.15 is a county lien, and reaching land elsewhere means moving the record.

Under Wis. Stat. 806.15 (1) the lien reaches real property in the county where the judgment is rendered, so a judgment entered in one county does nothing to a parcel in the next one until its record is carried there.

One such judgment, entered under ss. 806.10, 806.12 and 806.24, may be entered in any other county by filing with that county's clerk of circuit court a certified transcript from the original judgment and lien docket, which Wis. Stat. 806.13⁵ provides. That section gives the act of filing and no more. Whether entry in the second county makes the judgment a lien on land there is a question for counsel, because the lien statute speaks only of the county where the judgment was rendered.

Appellate judgments move by their own route. On demand the clerk of the supreme court furnishes a certified transcript of a money judgment of the court of appeals or supreme court, which may be entered in any clerk of circuit court's docket as other judgments are, and is then a lien, for the same time as circuit court judgments, on land in the county where entered. Wis. Stat. 806.16⁶ covers that path, for those two courts only.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

A resident owner's homestead is exempt to $75,000, and a short list of liens cuts straight through it.

An exempt homestead selected by a resident owner and occupied by that owner is exempt from execution, from the lien of every judgment, and from liability for the owner's debts, to the amount of $75,000 under Wis. Stat. 815.20⁷ (1). That same subsection exempts nothing from mortgages, from laborers', mechanics' and purchase money liens, or from taxes, which reach the homestead anyway. Against other states, that figure sits in homestead protection, state by state.

Shared ownership gets the exemption too. Wis. Stat. 815.20 (1) extends it to the interest of tenants in common who have a homestead on the land with the consent of their cotenants, and to any estate less than a fee. It reaches land owned by husband and wife jointly, in common, or as marital property, with each spouse able to claim a homestead exemption of not more than $75,000.

A low-value homestead can force a release. Where a judgment has been entered against the owner of an exempt homestead worth less than $75,000, and the judgment owner fails for 10 days after demand to execute a recordable release of the homestead from the lien, the owner, or the owner's heir, devisee, grantee or mortgagee, may seek declaratory relief under s. 806.04. Wis. Stat. 815.20 (2) opens that door.

Where the records live

One office holds the record that matters, and one book inside it.

A judgment lien lives in the judgment and lien docket, kept by the clerk of circuit court. That is the book the clerk fills in under Wis. Stat. 806.10 (1) when a money judgment is entered, arranged alphabetically by debtor. It carries the debtor's residence, the date and time of entry, and the amount with costs. Those are the fields the statute names.

A blank residence line is the detail the lien statute turns on. If it is empty, the affidavit route in Wis. Stat. 806.10 (1)(a) exists to fill it, and that same section says a missing address does not affect the judgment's validity. A creditor may file the affidavit at any time, and the clerk enters it with the date and time. Wisconsin's filing act sits beside the others in how a judgment becomes a lien, state by state.