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Information and description:
In U.S. law, lien is the broadest term for any sort of charge
or encumbrance against an item of property that secures the
payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation.
Liens can be consensual or non-consensual. Consensual liens
are imposed by a contract between the creditor
and the debtor.
These liens include:
* mortgages;
* car loans;
* security interests;
* chattel mortgages
Non-consensual liens typically arise by statute or by the
operation of the common law.
These liens give a creditor the right to impose a lien on
an item of real property or a chattel by the existence of
the relationship of creditor and debtor.
These liens include:
* tax liens, imposed to secure payment of a tax;
* attorney's liens, against funds and documents to secure
payment of fees;
* mechanic's liens, which secure payment for work done on
property or land;
* judgment liens, imposed to secure payment of a judgment
* maritime liens, imposed on ships by admiralty law.
Liens are also "perfected" or "unperfected."
Perfected liens are those liens for which a creditor has taken
the steps required by law to give third parties notice of
his interest in the property in which a lien is claimed. The
fact that an item of property is in the hands of the creditor
usually constitutes perfection. Where the property remains
in the hands of the debtor, some further step must be taken,
like recording a notice of the security interest with the
appropriate office.
Perfecting a lien is an important part of the task of protecting
the secured creditor's interest in the property. A perfected
lien is valid, even against a trustee in bankruptcy; an unperfected
lien is not.
See
also:
•
List
of Finance Topics
• Adverse Credit History
• Bankruptcy
• Debt
Consolidation
• Foreclosure
• Personal
Finance
• Student
Loan Consolidate
• Experian
• Credit Score
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Lien".
leen, lein,
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