Lien is a lawful position that grants an individual, business or any other party the authority to legally seize or put up for sale other person’s asset with the main aim of recovering a pending debt or any other form of arrears. For example, a money lender can have the beneficiary surrender the right to an asset until the owed amount is cleared. Failure to have the debt settled as agreed, the lender can sell the pledged security so as to make good the remaining debt.
Just as there are a number of debt related cases so are the different forms of liens. Liens on lawsuits, tax, contracts and so many others categories will often feature to different persons both locally and globally. However, what many people are not aware of are the steps involved when one wants to file lien.
Since lien is guided by a court process, creditors should visit a civil court for legal judgment to affirm that they truly owe the money in question. After that and as guided by the court ruling, the creditor should wait up to a period of six months prior to taking the next step. However, after the getting to the fifth month, a creditor should send a certified letter to the debtor informing him or her of the pending lien. On the sixth month and with nothing to show, the creditor should file lien as he or she pleases.
Upon making that decision, a creditor should make a return to the civil court for the judge to hold the debtor in contempt of court. It is during this ruling that the debtor will be required to make a disclosure of the assets he or she owns. With all the defendants’ property clearly identified, the creditor can then go ahead to identify an asset that will effectively compensate for the amount owed. If the defendant fails to comply with the court orders, he or she may end up facing the full wrath of the law as well as being forcefully subjected to the debt recovery process.
If a debtor is not of the same state or country as the creditor, the creditor should file lien in the debtor’s specific place of residence. More to that, it advisable to learn of the rules that govern that residence as well as the procedures that ought to be followed before a debt can be recovered. Even though a lien may not always work well where a debtor dies and the property in question gets inherited as it may have been recommended in a will, it definitely helps in recovering a debt that would have otherwise ended up not settled.