Maine Judgment Collection
Maine does not attach a lien to a judgment. It attaches one to the execution, and then gives a creditor twenty days to protect it. Under 14 M.R.S. 4651-A(5) a lien created by that section “becomes void and loses its status as a perfected security interest” – both against the particular judgment debtor and against that debtor’s other creditors – unless the judgment creditor notifies the debtor by certified or registered mail sent to the judgment debtor’s last known address on or before the 20th day after filing or recording. Not voidable, and not merely unenforceable against the debtor: void, and stripped of perfection as against everyone else with a claim on the same property. The statute then says what the letter must contain. A Maine creditor’s security therefore rests on an address, and on knowing it before the execution is filed rather than after. Our own part in that is research and nothing else: Maine registry and court records, and lawfully licensed data, opened only once a requester has given a reason the law allows. No one here carries a Maine investigator’s licence, practises law, or collects debts, and a page about a statute is not advice about your judgment.
Subsection 5 Is the Whole Risk, and It Has an Enumerated Content List
The letter is prescribed, the deadline is counted in days, and the penalty is voidness.
14 M.R.S. 4651-A(5) is headed “Notice to judgment debtor” and it does three things in one paragraph. It states the sanction – the lien becomes void and loses its status as a perfected security interest with respect to the right, title and interest of any particular judgment debtor, and with respect to any other creditors of that debtor. It states the cure – unless the judgment creditor notifies the judgment debtor by certified or registered mail sent to the judgment debtor’s last known address on or before the twentieth day after filing or recording of the existence of the lien. And it states what the notice must contain: the fact that a lien has been filed; the date and place the lien was filed; the amount of the judgment and costs as stated in the execution; and the names of the parties.
Two features of that deserve emphasis because they are what make it a research problem rather than a diary problem. The standard is the last known address, and the medium is certified or registered mail – a medium that produces a record of what happened to the letter. A creditor who sends to a stale address has not merely risked the notice; the creditor has generated documentary evidence of having sent it to the wrong place. And because the deadline runs from filing, the address has to be right at the moment the execution is filed, which means it has to be established before.
The second-order effect is the one that catches portfolios. Subsection 5’s voidness runs against “any other creditors of the judgment debtor” as well as against the debtor. A defective notice therefore does not just weaken the creditor’s hand in a negotiation with the debtor; it unperfects the interest in any contest with a competing lienholder or a trustee, which is exactly the contest in which the lien was supposed to matter.
Maine adds a mirror-image duty in subsection 7. Where the property reached was exempt from attachment and execution and the creditor failed to discharge the execution within fifteen days after receiving notice and proof of that, the debtor may recover damages, and a debtor who prevails in such an action is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in bringing it. Twenty days to protect the lien; fifteen days to release it when it should not be there.
Three Classes of Property, Three Different Offices
One execution, filed in up to three places, each with its own perfection rule.
| Property | Where the execution is filed | What it reaches |
|---|---|---|
| Real estate 4651-A(1) | A registry of deeds – the execution duly issued by a court of this State, or an attested copy, filed within 3 years after issuance of the execution. | The debtor’s right, title and interest in all real estate against which a mortgage would be duly perfected if filed in that registry, and that is not exempt from attachment and execution. County by county |
| Personal property 4651-A(2) | The office of the Secretary of State, within the same 3 years after issuance. | The debtor’s interest in personal property that is not exempt and that is of a type against which a security interest could be perfected by filing a financing statement with that office. |
| Motor vehicles 4651-A(3) | Where a proof of transfer would be delivered under Title 29-A, section 665(1), together with delivery of an application under Title 29-A, section 657, within the same 3 years. | The debtor’s interest in any motor vehicle for which a title certificate must be obtained under Title 29-A, chapter 7. |
The design borrows from secured-transactions law rather than from judgment-lien law, and the borrowing is explicit: real estate is measured by where a mortgage would be perfected, personal property by where a financing statement would be filed, vehicles by the certificate-of-title machinery. That is why subsection 5 speaks of losing “status as a perfected security interest” – in Maine the execution lien really is one.
Subsection 4 fixes the amount: a lien created by the section is in an amount sufficient to satisfy the judgment together with interest and costs. Subsection 10 supplies a validation rule worth knowing when auditing older files – subject to subsections 5, 8 and 9, a lien filed under subsection 1, 2 or 3 is valid and enforceable if the execution was issued on or after 29 September 1995 and the lien was filed within three years of the issuance of the execution.
The practical consequence of three offices is that a Maine file has three separate answers to “is there security”, and they can differ. A creditor may be perfected against a house in one county and unperfected against a boat, a business’s equipment, or a truck, simply because only one filing was made. Establishing which classes of property actually exist – and, for real estate, which of Maine’s sixteen counties the registry sits in – is the work that decides how many filings are worth making. Our note on finding real estate owned by a judgment debtor covers the land side of that, and what assets can be seized to satisfy a judgment covers the broader picture.
The Short Version
Maine liens the execution rather than the judgment. Filing the execution, or an attested copy, within three years of its issuance creates a lien – with a registry of deeds for real estate, with the Secretary of State for personal property, and through the Title 29-A certificate machinery for motor vehicles. The lien is void unless the creditor sends the judgment debtor certified or registered mail at the last known address, on or before the twentieth day after filing, containing the four enumerated items. Duration turns on when the lien was created: liens created before 1 September 2020 run twenty years and may be renewed once for twenty more; liens created on or after that date run ten years and may be renewed once for ten more. Separately, 14 M.R.S. 864 does not expire a judgment at all – it presumes one paid and satisfied after twenty years, except for a child support order.
Watch: The Twenty Days That Decide It
Why an address is the load-bearing fact in a Maine execution lien.
Watch Overview
Two Populations of Maine Lien, Split by One Date in 2020
PL 2019 c. 622 halved the term for anything created on or after 1 September 2020.
This is the fact most summaries of Maine law still get wrong, and it is checkable in the statute’s own subsection numbering. Subsection 9 governs a lien created under the section after 21 September 2001 but before 1 September 2020: it continues for twenty years from the date of the filing of the writ of execution, or of the recording of the writ in the registry of deeds, unless the judgment is paid, discharged or released. It may be renewed once, for a further twenty years, by filing or recording a renewal, pluries or alias writ of execution in the same manner as the original was filed or recorded, with the same notice required by subsection 5. If the renewal writ is filed or recorded before the original twenty years expire, it relates back to the date the original writ was filed or recorded and prevents the lien expiring.
Subsection 9-A, added by PL 2019, c. 622, s. 2, governs a lien created on or after 1 September 2020: it continues for ten years from that same filing or recording date, unless paid, discharged or released; it may likewise be renewed once, for a further ten years, by a renewal, pluries or alias writ filed the same way with the same subsection-5 notice; and a renewal filed before the ten years expire relates back in the same fashion.
Three points follow that matter to anyone holding Maine paper. First, the split is by creation date of the lien, not by the date of the judgment, so two liens on the same debtor, arising from judgments of the same vintage, can have different lives if the executions were filed either side of that date. Second, the renewal in both subsections is available once – Maine is not an indefinitely renewable state, and after one renewal the outer limit is fixed at forty years for the older population and twenty for the newer. Third, the renewal carries the subsection 5 notice requirement with it, so the twenty-day certified letter to the last known address has to be sent again, ten or twenty years later, to an address that has had a decade or two to go stale.
That third point is the one worth calendaring. The address that supported the original notice is almost certainly not the address that will support the renewal notice, and the renewal is the last one Maine allows. Our comparison of how long a judgment stays good in each state sets the Maine position beside its neighbours, and renewing an old judgment before it expires covers the general discipline.
Maine’s Twenty Years Is a Presumption, Not an Expiry
14 M.R.S. 864 says “presumed to be paid and satisfied”, and the difference is real.
Summaries routinely render Maine as a twenty-year state in the same breath as states whose judgments simply die. The statute says something different. 14 M.R.S. 864 is headed “Presumption of payment after 20 years” and provides that every judgment and decree of any court of record of the United States, or of any state, or of a justice of the peace in this State, is presumed to be paid and satisfied at the end of twenty years after any duty or obligations accrued by virtue of such judgment or decree – except for a child support order.
Two things follow. A presumption of payment is a rule about proof: it describes what a court will assume absent evidence, rather than extinguishing the judgment by operation of law the way a limitation period bars an action. And the trigger is not entry or rendition but the accrual of “any duty or obligations” under the judgment – language that fits instalment and support obligations, where duties accrue over time, better than it fits a single sum ordered on a fixed day.
The child support exception is not a bare carve-out either; the section carries an enacted definition, amended by PL 2017, c. 102, s. 1. For its purposes a “child support order” means a judgment, decree or order, whether temporary, final or subject to modification, issued by a court or an administrative agency of competent jurisdiction for the support and maintenance of a child – including a child who has attained the age of majority under the law of the issuing state – that provides for monetary support, health care, arrearages or reimbursement, and may include related costs and fees, interest and penalties, income withholding, attorney’s fees and other relief.
So the accurate statement of Maine’s outer limits is layered rather than single. The execution lien has its own term – ten or twenty years depending on when it was created, renewable once. The judgment itself is not expired at twenty years but presumed paid, on a trigger keyed to accrual of duties, and support obligations sit outside that presumption altogether. Treating any one of those as “the Maine rule” is how a file gets abandoned early or pursued too late.
What We Establish Before the Execution Is Filed
Addresses and property, sourced and dated. The filing and the advice are counsel’s.
What is set out above is general information about how Maine’s execution-lien and presumption statutes read. How it applies to one judgment is a question for Maine counsel. Nobody here obtains or files an execution, records anything at a registry of deeds or with the Secretary of State, sends the subsection 5 notice, seeks a disclosure subpoena, or approaches a judgment debtor about payment. Those are acts for Maine counsel and the courts. The mechanics of the disclosure hearing itself, and Maine’s exemption schedule, are set out in our Maine wage garnishment laws and Maine asset exemptions from creditors references, and this page does not repeat them.
Our part is the factual groundwork the twenty-day rule depends on: a current address for a judgment debtor and a documented view of what the last known address actually is, confirmed against more than one independent record; which of Maine’s counties hold real estate recorded in the name, so that the right registries are identified before an execution is filed rather than after; and whether the debtor is still in Maine at all. Every finding carries the record it came from and the date it was checked. Where someone has left the state, our Maine people-location work is the starting point and locating a judgment debtor who moved out of state covers the wider search.
Two conditions govern the work. The first is a stated lawful basis – enforcing a judgment, serving a party, identifying an asset – given before anything is looked at. The second is the source: Maine public records and lawfully licensed data, and no other route. That rules out the shortcuts the trade is sometimes associated with, and we will name them so there is no ambiguity – we do not pretext, do not adopt another identity, and do not give a registry of deeds, a town office or an employer a false account of who is asking. This firm is not a licensed private investigator in Maine, holds no such licence, practises no law and collects no debts.
Two refusals are constant. The first concerns what this firm is: it is not a consumer reporting agency, and what it produces is not a consumer report. Nothing we deliver is gathered or supplied so that somebody can decide whether to rent to a person, hire or promote one, or extend credit or insurance to one; an enquiry with any of those objects is turned down and sent to a screening provider regulated for the job. The second concerns who is being sought. If a request carries the marks of a search for someone who has left a relationship, obtained a protective order, or otherwise stands to be harmed by being located, we stop and tell the requester why. A Maine execution does not buy past that.
Our Commitment
You get the Maine record as it stands: what the registries, the Secretary of State’s filings and the court files establish about a debtor’s whereabouts and property, what they merely suggest, and what they do not reach – each with its source and the date checked. Where the records will not support an address we say so, because on this statute an address offered without support is worse than none.
Maine Judgment Questions
Does a Maine judgment automatically become a lien?
No. Maine liens the execution rather than the judgment. Under 14 M.R.S. 4651-A the lien arises from filing the execution duly issued by a court of this State, or an attested copy, within three years after issuance – with a registry of deeds for real estate, with the office of the Secretary of State for personal property, and through the Title 29-A machinery for motor vehicles.
What is the 20-day notice in 14 M.R.S. 4651-A(5)?
It is the condition on which the lien survives. Subsection 5 provides that the lien becomes void and loses its status as a perfected security interest, both as to the judgment debtor and as to that debtor’s other creditors, unless the creditor notifies the debtor by certified or registered mail sent to the judgment debtor’s last known address on or before the 20th day after filing or recording. The notice must state the fact of filing, the date and place of filing, the amount of the judgment and costs as stated in the execution, and the names.
How long does a Maine execution lien last?
It depends on when the lien was created. Under subsection 9 a lien created after 21 September 2001 but before 1 September 2020 continues twenty years from the filing or recording of the writ. Under subsection 9-A, added by PL 2019 c. 622, a lien created on or after 1 September 2020 continues ten years. Both run from the filing or recording date rather than from the judgment.
Can a Maine execution lien be renewed?
Once. Both subsection 9 and subsection 9-A allow renewal a single time, for a further twenty or ten years respectively, by filing or recording a renewal, pluries or alias writ of execution in the same manner as the original and with the same notice required by subsection 5. A renewal writ filed before the original period expires relates back to the date the original writ was filed or recorded.
Is a Maine judgment dead after 20 years?
Not by that section. 14 M.R.S. 864 provides that every judgment and decree of any court of record of the United States or of any state, or of a justice of the peace in this State, is presumed to be paid and satisfied at the end of twenty years after any duty or obligations accrued by virtue of it. That is a presumption about proof rather than an expiry, and child support orders are expressly excepted, on the enacted definition amended by PL 2017 c. 102.
Why does the filing office differ by type of property in Maine?
Because 4651-A is drafted on secured-transactions lines. Real estate is measured by where a mortgage would be duly perfected, personal property by where a security interest could be perfected by filing a financing statement with the Secretary of State, and motor vehicles by the certificate-of-title provisions of Title 29-A. That is also why subsection 5 speaks of the lien losing its status as a perfected security interest.
What happens if a Maine creditor liens exempt property?
Subsection 7 gives the debtor a remedy. Where the property was exempt from attachment and execution and the creditor failed to discharge the execution within fifteen days after receiving notice and proof of that, the debtor may recover damages, and a debtor who prevails in such an action is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in bringing it.
What will your firm do on a Maine judgment, and what will it not do?
We establish, from Maine public records and lawfully licensed data, a judgment debtor’s current whereabouts and a documented view of the last known address, and which Maine counties hold real estate recorded in the name – each with its source and the date checked. The rest is not ours: obtaining or filing an execution, recording it, sending the subsection 5 notice, advising, or dealing with the debtor. We investigate under no licence, practise no law, and collect nothing. Neither is this a consumer reporting agency, so its findings may not be used to screen a tenant, decide a hire or a promotion, or underwrite credit or insurance. An enquiry that appears to target someone who would be endangered by being found is declined.
Twenty Days Is the Whole Margin. Get the Address Right First.
In Maine the lien is void if the certified letter does not go to the judgment debtor’s last known address within twenty days of filing the execution. Send us the debtor and a lawful reason to search, and you will get back both addresses the statute cares about – where they are now, and what the last known address defensibly is – with the Maine counties recording real estate in that name, ordinarily within 24 hours. Contact us and we will tell you what the registries actually show.
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