The Lien Foreclosure action. What is it and what does it get you?

OCTOBER 13, 2017

The Lien Foreclosure Action: Once your claim of lien has been filed, the suit to perfect the lien has been timely filed and you have won your suit against the contractor (or entity with whom you had the contract) the next step is foreclosure of the lien. This involves filing suit against the owner of the property on which the improvements were made and claim of lien was filed.

The purpose of the lien foreclosure action is the creation of a lien (in the amount of your claim) on the property. This lien is your right to recover the money you are owed from the proceeds of the sale of the property, whether by judicial or private sale.

What must you do to win? In order to win on your lien foreclosure action you must prove 1) that you have a valid claim of lien and met all the notice requirements associated with the claim of lien; 2) that you timely filed your suit to perfect the lien against the contractor and that you filed the notice of commencement of suit; 3) and that you won your lien perfection suit (evidenced by a judgment in your favor). More detail will be provided regarding the specific elements of the lien foreclosure complaint in a later entry.

You have a lien, now what? Once a lien has been created by the lien foreclosure action upon the real estate, the real estate may be sold to satisfy the lien. This sale is by sheriff’s sale. The sale is a public sale and is held in the county where the real property is located on the first Tuesday of each month, between 10 am and 4:00 p.m. Notice of this sale must be published once a week for four (4) calendar weeks in the newspaper that is the official organ of the county where the sale is being held. More detail on this later as well.