Also known as: judicial liens · judgment lien
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A lien obtained by a creditor through judicial process. The creditor first secures a judgment and then dockets it against the debtor's real property or levies execution on personal property to create the lien.
Jonathan Jaffe sues Jose Jimenez on an unpaid note and obtains a money judgment. Jonathan immediately dockets the judgment in the county recorder's office where Jose owns land. When Jose later acquires additional real estate, the docketed judgment automatically attaches as a judicial lien on that parcel. Jonathan may now force a sheriff's sale of the land to satisfy the judgment.
Jennings Forge obtains a judgment against Jackson Mutual and delivers a writ of execution to the sheriff. The sheriff levies on Jackson's manufacturing equipment, creating a judicial lien. When Jackson files Chapter 7, the bankruptcy trustee steps into the shoes of a hypothetical judicial lien creditor and can avoid any unperfected security interest that would lose to that lien.
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The creditor first obtains a money judgment. The creditor then dockets or records the judgment in the county where the debtor's real property is located. Docketing itself creates the lien on all real property the debtor then owns or later acquires in that county.
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A judgment lien arises by docketing the judgment and reaches the debtor's real property. An execution lien requires the additional step of delivering a writ of execution to the sheriff and levying on the debtor's personal property.
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Section 544(a) gives the trustee the status of a creditor who extends credit and obtains a judicial lien on all the debtor's property at the moment the petition is filed. This status allows the trustee to avoid unperfected security interests that would lose to such a lien under state law.
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Yes. In most states a properly docketed judgment lien automatically attaches to any real property the debtor acquires while the lien remains in force.
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…11 U. S. C. §545 (statutory liens). Section 522(f)(1), by its terms, extends this protection to cases involving the fixing of judicial liens onto exempt property. What specific legislative history exists suggests that a principal reason Congress singled out judicial liens was because they are a device commonly used by creditors…