Nevada Judgment Collection
Nevada is the only state in this group whose judgment lien clock does not run from entry. Under NRS 17.150(2) a recorded transcript or abstract creates a lien on the debtor’s non-exempt real property in that county – including property acquired afterwards – and that lien continues six years after the date the judgment was docketed. Not entry, and not the recording that actually brought the lien into existence. Nevada is also the only state here that writes asset verification into the lien statute itself: subsection (4) requires a creditor recording for lien purposes to record, at the same time, an affidavit of judgment giving the assessor’s parcel number and address of the property and a statement that the judgment creditor has confirmed that the judgment debtor is the legal owner – on the personal knowledge of the affiant, not on information and belief. The cycle around that is short. The limitation on an action upon a judgment is six years under NRS 11.190(1)(a); renewal is an affidavit filed in the ninety days before expiry with nine specified contents, and it carries two separate three-day duties, one of them a certified mailing to the debtor’s last known address. A short cycle and a verification requirement together mean the research has to be current, not archival. That is our half. The work is record research on a stated lawful basis and nothing beyond it. There is no Nevada private investigator licence behind it, no lawyer-client relationship and no collection activity, and the NRS provisions above are general information rather than advice on your case.
Nevada Will Not Give You a Lien Until You Have Checked
The affidavit of judgment turns asset research into a statutory precondition.
Most states let a creditor record first and find out later whether the debtor owned anything. Nevada does not. NRS 17.150(4) provides that a judgment creditor who records a judgment or decree for the purpose of creating a lien on the debtor’s real property must record at that time an affidavit of judgment, and it specifies what that affidavit has to say.
It begins ordinarily enough: the name and address of the judgment debtor. Then, where the debtor is a natural person, either the last four digits of their driver’s licence or identification card number together with the state of issuance, or the last four digits of their social security number. Then the paragraph that changes the work: where the lien is against real property the debtor owns at the time the affidavit is recorded, the affidavit must give the assessor’s parcel number and the address of that property, and must contain a statement that the judgment creditor has confirmed that the judgment debtor is the legal owner of it. The same requirement is repeated for a manufactured or mobile home included in the lien, with its location and serial number.
And then the sentence that stops a creditor from waving at the requirement: all information included in an affidavit of judgment recorded under the subsection must be based on the personal knowledge of the affiant, and not upon information and belief. A parcel number copied from a search summary, or an assumption that the debtor still owns the house they lived in when the suit was filed, is not personal knowledge that they are the legal owner today.
Read plainly, Nevada has made the thing this firm does a condition of the remedy. The confirmation the statute wants is a title and ownership check against current recorded documents in the correct jurisdiction, tied to the right individual rather than to a name that matches. Nevada records through sixteen counties plus the consolidated municipality of Carson City, so “the right jurisdiction” is a real question and not a formality. The method behind that check is described in finding a judgment debtor’s real estate.
Six Years From Docketing – Not From Entry, Not From Recording
Nevada measures its lien from an event the other states in this family do not use.
NRS 17.150(2) allows a transcript of the original docket, or an abstract or copy of any judgment or decree of a Nevada district court or of the federal court in and for the District of Nevada – certified by the clerk of the court that rendered it, and where enforcement has not been stayed on appeal – to be recorded in the office of the county recorder in any county. When so recorded it becomes a lien on all the debtor’s real property in that county that is not exempt from execution, whether owned at the time or acquired afterwards, until the lien expires.
Then the measuring rule: the lien continues for six years after the date the judgment or decree was docketed, and is continued each time the judgment or decree is renewed. Docketing is the clerk’s act, performed under subsection (1) immediately after the judgment roll is filed, with the hour and minutes of the entries noted. It is not the same as entry and it is emphatically not the same as recording. A creditor who records an abstract three years after docketing holds three years of lien, and the receipt from the recorder will not mention it.
The same subsection lists four ways the lien ends before its time. Where enforcement is stayed on appeal by a sufficient undertaking under the Nevada Rules of Appellate Procedure or federal statute, the lien of the judgment ceases – and so does any attachment lien issued and levied in the action. Where the judgment is satisfied, or the lien is otherwise discharged, it ends. And in the opposite direction, a judgment for arrearages in child support has a lien that continues until the judgment is satisfied. Finally, there is a tolling rule worth knowing: the time during which execution of the judgment is suspended by appeal, by action of the court, or by the defendant is not counted in computing the time of expiration.
Subsection (3) sets out what the abstract itself must contain – five items: the title of the court and the title and number of the action; the date of entry of the judgment or decree; the names of the judgment debtor and judgment creditor; the amount; and the location where the judgment or decree is entered in the minutes or judgment docket. That last item is not decoration. It is where the docketing date, and therefore the lien’s expiry, is established. How the lien clock is measured in other states is compared in the judgment lien guide by state.
Watch: Nevada’s Short Cycle
Six years, a confirmation requirement, and two three-day deadlines.
Watch Overview
Nine Items, Ninety Days, and Two Three-Day Duties
Nevada’s renewal is not finished when the clerk stamps it.
| Step in NRS 17.214 | The deadline | What it needs from you |
|---|---|---|
| File the Affidavit of Renewal of Judgment with the clerk | Within the 90 days before the judgment expires by limitation | Nine specified items, on personal knowledge. Records |
| Record the affidavit of renewal with the county recorder, if the judgment is recorded | Within 3 days after filing with the clerk | The county where the original judgment is filed. |
| Notify the judgment debtor by certified mail, return receipt requested | Within 3 days after filing | The debtor’s last known address. |
| Successive renewals | Within the 90 days before the preceding renewal expires | The same nine items, again. |
The nine items in subsection (1)(a) are: the names of the parties and of any successor in interest with the source and succession of title; the county and the document number, or the number and page of the book, if the judgment is recorded; the date and amount of the judgment and the docket number and page where it is entered; whether there is an outstanding writ of execution; the date and amount of any payment; whether there are setoffs or counterclaims, with the amount, or a statement that an unsettled one will be allowed as a payment or credit when determined; the exact amount due; each county in which a transcript has been docketed and an abstract recorded, where the judgment was docketed on a certified copy from another court; and any other fact or circumstance necessary to a complete disclosure of the exact condition of the judgment. All of it on the personal knowledge of the affiant, and not on information and belief.
The two three-day duties are what distinguish Nevada from a jurisdiction where renewal is a single filing. If the judgment is recorded, the affidavit of renewal must itself be recorded with the county recorder in which the original judgment is filed, within three days after it went to the clerk – so the renewal has to be carried into the recording system, not merely the court system. And the creditor or their successor in interest must notify the judgment debtor of the renewal by sending a copy of the affidavit by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the debtor’s last known address, within three days after filing.
That second duty is an address problem with a seventy-two-hour fuse. It is not satisfied by looking for an address after the affidavit is filed; realistically it has to be answered before. Since renewal comes round every six years, and a debtor who has been avoiding a judgment for six years is rarely at the address on the papers, the address work belongs to the front of the renewal cycle rather than the back. The general timing discipline is in renewing an old judgment before it expires, and the underlying instrument in judgment renewal.
Where the Six Years Actually Come From
Not from the renewal statute, which is where most sources put them.
It is common to see Nevada’s six-year period attributed to NRS 17.214. That is the renewal statute, and it does not set a period at all – it sets a window, a list of contents, and three deadlines. The six years come from two other places, and they are worth telling apart because they answer different questions.
NRS 11.190(1)(a) sets the limitation on bringing an action: within six years, an action upon a judgment or decree of any court of the United States, or of any state or territory within the United States, or the renewal thereof. That governs the judgment as an obligation you can sue upon. NRS 17.150(2) sets the six years for the recorded lien, measured from docketing. A judgment and its lien are therefore on two six-year clocks with two different start points, and only one of them is affected by the tolling rule for suspended execution.
For a creditor the practical consequence of a six-year cycle is that Nevada rewards early, accurate work and punishes filing a matter away. California and Arizona give ten years before anything has to happen; Washington gives ten and then stops for good at twenty; Colorado gives six or twenty depending on the court. Nevada comes back round every six years, indefinitely, provided each renewal is timely. That is a favourable regime for a diligent creditor and an unforgiving one for a dormant file – and the difference between the two is whether somebody is keeping the debtor’s location and holdings current between cycles. The cross-state view is collected in how long a judgment is good for by state.
A Bank Levy Meets an Automatic Floor
And a forty-five-day lookback the bank applies without anyone claiming it.
NRS 21.105(1) attaches to a writ of execution or garnishment levied on the personal bank account of a judgment debtor. Where money has been deposited into the account electronically within the immediately preceding 45 days that is reasonably identifiable as exempt from execution, then notwithstanding any other deposits into that account, $2,000 or the entire amount in the account, whichever is less, is not subject to execution and must remain accessible to the judgment debtor.
Two features make this different from an ordinary exemption. It operates automatically at the moment of levy rather than on a claim the debtor has to file. And it is triggered by the character of a recent electronic deposit, not by tracing the particular dollars – the statute says the floor applies notwithstanding other deposits into the account.
What counts as reasonably identifiable is enumerated rather than left to argument: money deposited by the United States Department of the Treasury, and the section then lists fourteen categories from (a) to (n), including Social Security retirement, survivors, supplemental security income and disability benefits; veterans’ benefits; railroad retirement annuities; federal employee retirement and disability benefits; military retired pay and survivor annuities; service members’ pay and allowances; federal student loan payments; merchant seamen’s wages; longshore and harbor workers’ compensation; foreign-service annuities and disability benefits; compensation for injury, death or detention of employees of United States contractors abroad; FEMA disaster assistance; and black lung benefits.
The practical reading for a creditor is that a levy on the personal account of a debtor whose income arrives electronically from a federal source may return very little, and will do so without any exemption claim being made. It also means the useful question before a levy is not only which bank but what kind of income lands there – and that a business account is a materially different target from a personal one. Identifying the institution is covered in finding a judgment debtor’s bank account, and the fuller protected-asset picture in Nevada asset exemptions creditors.
On Premarital Debts, Nevada Protects Both Pots
Which is not what its neighbouring community-property states do.
Nevada is a community-property state, and on one question its answer is unusually clean. NRS 123.050 puts a premarital debt entirely beyond the non-debtor spouse. Two funds a creditor might hope to reach are named, and both are shut: that spouse’s own separate property, and that spouse’s share of the community. Contracted before the wedding means neither one answers for it.
That is worth stating precisely because the community-property label alone predicts nothing here. Of the states whose statutes were read directly for this build, Arizona reaches community property for a premarital debt up to the value of the debtor spouse’s contribution to the community, and Washington makes the debtor spouse’s earnings and accumulations available to creditors for debts incurred before the marriage. Three community-property states, three different answers to the same question. No claim is made here about the remaining community-property states, whose statutes were not read for this page.
Nevada’s own doctrine beyond the premarital rule – what is community, what is separate, how obligations incurred during a marriage are treated, and how an asset’s character is determined – is mapped in our Nevada community property laws explainer. Characterising a particular asset or obligation is a legal judgment for your attorney rather than something we determine. Where we can help is one step earlier: establishing, from recorded documents, whose names appear on a title, when a holding was acquired, and how it appears to be held. That is also the evidence the affidavit of judgment’s confirmed-legal-owner statement rests on, so on a Nevada file the two questions are usually answered by the same search.
The Short Version
Nevada runs a six-year cycle and asks you to do the research before it gives you a lien. A transcript or abstract recorded with a county recorder creates a lien on the debtor’s non-exempt real property in that county under NRS 17.150(2), including property acquired later – but that lien runs six years from the date the judgment was docketed, which is neither the entry date nor the recording date. And subsection (4) requires the creditor to record, at the same time, an affidavit of judgment carrying the debtor’s name and address, the last four digits of a driver’s licence, identification card or social security number, and – where the lien is against a parcel the debtor owns – the assessor’s parcel number, the address, and a statement that the creditor has confirmed the debtor is the legal owner, all on personal knowledge rather than information and belief. The judgment itself is governed by the six-year limitation in NRS 11.190(1)(a), and renewal is an affidavit filed in the ninety days before expiry with nine specified contents – followed by two three-day duties, recording the affidavit with the county recorder if the judgment is recorded, and certified-mailing a copy to the debtor’s last known address. On the levy side, NRS 21.105 keeps $2,000 or the whole balance, whichever is less, out of reach in a personal bank account where money reasonably identifiable as exempt arrived electronically in the preceding 45 days, drawing on fourteen enumerated federal sources. And NRS 123.050 shuts two funds at once against a premarital debt – that spouse’s own separate property, and that spouse’s share of the community. Confirming ownership, finding the parcel, and holding a current address are records work, and doing it with sources is our part. General information, not legal advice.
The Confirmation Nevada Asks For, and Who Makes It
We produce the evidence. Your attorney signs and files.
NRS 17.150(4) is unusual in that it names our deliverable in a statute. It wants a parcel number, an address, and a statement that the creditor has confirmed the debtor is the legal owner – sworn to on personal knowledge. Somebody has to have looked, at the right recorder’s office, at documents current enough to support the word “confirmed”, and tied the owner of record to the person named in the judgment rather than to somebody with the same name. That is a research product, and producing it with citations and dates is what this firm is for.
The signature is not ours and neither is the filing. Whether your judgment is inside its six years, whether an affidavit of judgment or an affidavit of renewal is properly sworn, whether an asset is community or separate, and which remedy fits are questions for Nevada counsel. We do not record anything, file affidavits, obtain writs, garnish, levy, or approach a debtor about payment.
What we do produce, on a Nevada file, is fairly specific. The judgment debtor identified against the judgment itself, so a lien is not aimed at a namesake – which on this statute is not a nicety but the substance of what is being sworn. Current recorded ownership checked in the correct jurisdiction, across Nevada’s sixteen counties and Carson City, with the assessor’s parcel number where one exists. A corroborated current address, developed from records the person still generates, in time for the certified mailing that NRS 17.214(3) requires within three days of filing. And a documented view of business affiliations and entity holdings, since property routed through an entity is a different question from property held personally. Everything comes from the record and from licensed data, on the lawful basis that a Nevada judgment supplies. None of it comes from pretending to be the account holder, and none of it from inside an account. Applied beyond Nevada, the same method is our skip tracing services.
One request is declined however the file reads. Nevada operates a confidential address program through the Secretary of State for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking, built to keep a participant out of exactly the residential record trail this work follows. Some people are only safe while they are difficult to find. Where a Nevada file carries a protection order, an address of record that is transparently a stand-in, or an interest in the debt nobody can reconcile with the docket, the answer is no and the reason is put in writing. Enforcement is a permissible purpose for locating a debtor. It is not a route to a protected address.
Findings arrive dated, attributed, and with a straight statement of how far they can be relied on – including the ones nobody wants, that ownership could not be confirmed, or that the debtor now appears to be outside Nevada, at which point the records get followed and the enforcement question returns to counsel, as in locating a judgment debtor’s out-of-state assets. For a legitimate Nevada matter a first read typically comes back within 24 hours, and where a judgment is genuinely not worth working we say so rather than sell another search – see what to do about a judgment-proof debtor.
Who Works a Nevada File
Six-year cycles, and a confirmation to make each time.
Nevada Collection Counsel
Swearing the 17.150(4) affidavit
Creditors in Year Five
Inside the ninety-day window
Nevada Businesses
B2B judgments and entity holdings
Nevada Landlords
Back-rent and damage judgments
Successors in Interest
Stating source and succession of title
Out-of-State Creditors
Docketing a judgment in Nevada
The successors card matters more in Nevada than elsewhere. Both the affidavit of judgment and the affidavit of renewal are sworn on personal knowledge, and the renewal affidavit must state the successor’s source and succession of title – a burden a purchaser of a judgment portfolio has to be able to discharge from documents rather than from a spreadsheet. Bringing a judgment into the state is covered in domesticating a judgment, and the day-to-day method for recovery firms in skip tracing for judgment recovery companies.
Our Commitment
Nevada wrote the confirmation into the statute: before a lien attaches to a parcel, somebody has to have checked who legally owns it, and to swear to that on personal knowledge. Checking is what we do – the debtor tied to the judgment rather than to a matching name, current recorded ownership examined in the right one of Nevada’s seventeen recording jurisdictions, the assessor’s parcel number captured where one exists, entity holdings distinguished from personal ones, and a corroborated address ready before the three-day certified mailing falls due. Every item is dated, attributed, and carries a straight answer about how much weight it will bear. The affidavits, the filings, and the characterisation of any asset stay with your attorney. On our side the rules have held since 2004: recorder and assessor records with licensed data behind them, a lawful basis confirmed before anything is searched, never under a pretext, and never into what a bank holds.
Nevada Judgment Questions
How long does a Nevada judgment lien last?
Six years, measured from the date the judgment or decree was docketed, under NRS 17.150(2) – not from entry and not from the recording that creates the lien. The lien is continued each time the judgment is renewed. Time during which execution is suspended by appeal, by action of the court, or by the defendant is not counted in computing expiration, and the lien ends early on a stay with a sufficient undertaking, on satisfaction, or on discharge.
What is the affidavit of judgment Nevada requires?
A second document that must be recorded at the same time as the judgment when a creditor records for lien purposes. NRS 17.150(4) requires it to state the debtor’s name and address; for a natural person, the last four digits of their driver’s licence or identification card number with the state of issuance, or the last four of their social security number; and where the lien is against real property the debtor owns at that time, the assessor’s parcel number and address plus a statement that the creditor has confirmed the debtor is the legal owner. All of it on the affiant’s personal knowledge, not on information and belief.
Where do Nevada’s six years actually come from?
From two statutes, not from the renewal statute they are usually attributed to. NRS 11.190(1)(a) sets a six-year limitation on an action upon a judgment or decree of any United States court or of any state or territory, or the renewal of one. NRS 17.150(2) separately gives the recorded lien six years from docketing. NRS 17.214, which is often cited for the period, sets the renewal window and its contents rather than a duration.
When can I file a Nevada renewal affidavit?
Within the ninety days before the date the judgment expires by limitation, under NRS 17.214(1)(a). It must be titled Affidavit of Renewal of Judgment and specify nine items, from the parties and any successor’s source and succession of title through to the exact amount due and any further fact needed for a complete disclosure of the judgment’s condition, all on the affiant’s personal knowledge. Successive affidavits follow the same ninety-day rule against the preceding renewal’s expiry.
What has to happen within three days of filing a Nevada renewal?
Two separate things. If the judgment is recorded, the affidavit of renewal must be recorded with the county recorder in which the original judgment is filed within three days after it is filed with the clerk. And the creditor or their successor must notify the judgment debtor of the renewal by sending a copy of the affidavit by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the debtor’s last known address, within three days after filing. The second duty makes an accurate current address a prerequisite rather than an afterthought.
How much is protected in a Nevada debtor’s bank account?
Where a writ of execution or garnishment is levied on a judgment debtor’s personal bank account and money reasonably identifiable as exempt was deposited electronically within the immediately preceding forty-five days, NRS 21.105(1) keeps $2,000 or the entire balance, whichever is less, out of execution and accessible to the debtor – notwithstanding any other deposits. The section enumerates fourteen federal sources that make a deposit reasonably identifiable, from Social Security and veterans’ benefits through to FEMA disaster assistance and black lung benefits.
Can I reach a married Nevada debtor’s property for a debt from before the marriage?
Under NRS 123.050 a debt contracted before the wedding cannot be answered for out of the other spouse’s separate property, nor out of that spouse’s share of the community; Nevada shuts both funds against it. That is not the answer every community-property state gives – Arizona exposes community property to a premarital debt up to the debtor spouse’s contribution, and Washington makes the debtor spouse’s earnings and accumulations available. How a particular asset or obligation is characterised in Nevada is a legal judgment for your attorney.
What does a Nevada creditor need before recording a lien?
Confirmed current ownership, tied to the right person, in the right jurisdiction. Nevada records through sixteen counties plus the consolidated municipality of Carson City, and NRS 17.150(4) asks for the assessor’s parcel number and a sworn statement of confirmed legal ownership on personal knowledge. That is a records exercise: checking current recorded documents rather than relying on an address from the case file or on a name that matches. Producing that evidence, with sources and dates, is our part; swearing and recording it are your attorney’s.
Confirm the Owner Before You Record in Nevada
Nevada asks you to swear, on personal knowledge, that the debtor is the legal owner of the parcel you are recording against – and then gives you three days to mail the renewal notice to an address you may not have. Give us the parcel, the debtor, and the purpose behind the enquiry. We establish from the records who legally owns what and build a current address the three-day notice can actually go to, both in a form your attorney can rely on, and there is ordinarily something to read within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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