Property liens in Massachusetts come in two shapes: those you agree to, like a mortgage, and those imposed on you without consent, like a contractor’s mechanics’ lien, a municipal or federal tax lien, a court judgment lien, or an unpaid condominium assessment lien. Each type has its own filing rules, its own deadlines, and its own place in line when the property is eventually sold or foreclosed. Getting the category and the priority right is what tells you whether a lien is a paperwork nuisance or a real threat to the property.
Voluntary and Involuntary Liens
A voluntary lien is one you consent to. The common example is a mortgage: when you borrow to buy a home, the lender records the mortgage at the registry of deeds, and it sits on the property as a lien until you pay the loan off. Chapter 183 governs how mortgages are created, recorded, and discharged, and it requires the lender to record a discharge once you’ve fully repaid.1General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 183 – Alienation of Land
Involuntary liens are placed on your property without your agreement. Contractors and suppliers who go unpaid can file mechanics’ liens. Governments can impose tax liens. Courts produce judgment liens once a creditor takes the right steps. Condominium associations can file for unpaid assessments. Any of them, left unresolved, can lead to a forced sale.
Mechanics’ Liens
Mechanics’ liens are the type most owners and contractors run into outside of a mortgage, and they’re the most procedurally demanding. Chapter 254 gives contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers the right to lien a property when they haven’t been paid.2General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 – Liens on Buildings and Land The right is real, but it dissolves quickly if the claimant misses a deadline.
The Notice of Contract
The process begins with recording a notice of contract at the registry of deeds in the county where the property sits. The notice identifies the owner, the contractor, the contract date, and the property. For a general contractor with a direct contract with the owner, the notice must be filed by the earliest of three deadlines: 60 days after a notice of substantial completion is recorded, 90 days after a notice of termination is recorded, or 90 days after the last day anyone under the contract performed work or supplied materials.3General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 Section 2 – Written Contract; Notice; Time for Filing; Form
Subcontractors face essentially the same three-trigger structure.4General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 Section 4 A subcontractor with no direct contract with the general contractor has an extra step: unless they send a “notice of identification” by certified mail to the general contractor within 30 days of starting work, the lien amount is capped at whatever the general contractor still owes the sub above them in the chain. Missing that 30-day window doesn’t kill the lien, but it can shrink what the lien is worth to very little.
The Sworn Statement of Account
Recording the notice of contract is only step one. The lien dissolves automatically unless the claimant also files a sworn statement of account at the registry of deeds. That statement must give a true accounting of the amount owed (including credits), describe the property, and name the owners from the original notice. The deadline is the earliest of 90 days after a notice of substantial completion, 120 days after a notice of termination, or 120 days after the last day work was performed or materials were supplied.5General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 Section 8 – Statement of Amount Due; Time for Filing; Dissolution of Lien
The deadlines overlap and depend on which event happens first. Treating the 120-day window as a safe default, without tracking whether a substantial completion notice has been recorded, is a common and expensive mistake.
Suing to Enforce
Even a properly recorded lien evaporates if the claimant doesn’t file suit. The statute gives the lienholder 90 days after recording the sworn statement of account to commence a civil action to enforce the lien.6General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 Section 11 – Action to Enforce Lien; Time to Commence; Validity of Lien Once those 90 days pass without a filed lawsuit, the lien dissolves by operation of law. The creditor is left with an ordinary breach-of-contract claim and no security in the property.
Tax Liens
Tax liens in Massachusetts come from two very different sources and behave very differently from each other.
Municipal Property Tax Liens
When a property owner falls behind on local property taxes, the municipality has an automatic lien on the property under Chapter 60. Municipal tax liens carry “super priority”: they jump ahead of nearly every other claim on the property, including mortgages recorded years earlier. Under Chapter 60 Section 37, these liens terminate three and a half years after the end of the fiscal year for which the taxes were assessed, though the municipality can pursue collection, including a tax taking that ultimately transfers the property away from the owner, well before that expiration.
Federal Tax Liens
A federal tax lien arises when the IRS assesses a tax and the taxpayer doesn’t pay after a notice and demand. The lien attaches to all of the taxpayer’s property, including real estate. Unlike a municipal tax lien, it does not automatically outrank everyone else. Unless the IRS records a Notice of Federal Tax Lien, the lien loses to purchasers, holders of security interests, mechanics’ lienors, and judgment lien creditors who perfected their claims first.7Internal Revenue Service. IRS Internal Revenue Manual 5.17.2 – Federal Tax Liens Recording the notice is what protects the IRS’s priority against those specific third parties.
Federal tax liens generally last 10 years from the date of assessment, a period the IRS calls the Collection Statute Expiration Date. Events like filing for bankruptcy, requesting an installment agreement, submitting an offer in compromise, or requesting a collection due process hearing can pause or extend that clock.8Internal Revenue Service. Time IRS Can Collect Tax
A property owner who needs to sell or refinance while a federal tax lien exists can apply for a certificate of discharge. The IRS will consider issuing one where, among other scenarios, the fair market value of property remaining subject to the lien is at least double the sum of the unpaid tax liability plus any senior liens. The owner can also obtain a discharge by paying the IRS the value of its interest in the specific property being released.9eCFR. 26 CFR 301.6325-1 – Release of Lien or Discharge of Property If the owner is not the taxpayer, for instance a spouse whose home is encumbered because of the other spouse’s tax debt, the IRS is required to issue a discharge once the owner deposits an amount equal to the IRS’s interest or posts an acceptable bond.
Judgment Liens
Winning a money judgment doesn’t by itself put a lien on the debtor’s real estate. In Massachusetts, the creditor has to obtain an execution from the court and record it at the registry of deeds in the county where the debtor owns property. Once recorded, the execution creates a lien on the debtor’s real property. If the creditor previously recorded a real estate attachment during the lawsuit, the execution has to be recorded within 30 days of issuance to “relate back” to the attachment’s original lien position, preserving the earlier priority date.
A judgment lien is only as valuable as the debtor’s equity in the property after senior liens are accounted for. On an underwater property, the lien attaches in theory but is worth little in practice.
Condominium Association Liens
Under the Massachusetts Condominium Act, Chapter 183A Section 6(c), a condominium association owed unpaid common-area assessments can record a lien that takes limited priority over even a first mortgage. This “super lien” covers up to six months of regular monthly assessments that accrued before the association filed suit, plus the association’s legal fees and costs. Priority is limited to those six months of ordinary operating assessments; it does not extend to reserves, late charges, or penalties beyond that window.
For lenders, the rule is a reason to watch whether unit owners are current on their condo fees. For owners, it means an unpaid balance can turn from a collections problem into a threat to ownership faster than most people expect.
How Priority Works When the Property Sells
When a property is sold or foreclosed, sale proceeds are paid out to lienholders in order of priority. Once the money runs out, junior lienholders get nothing. The baseline rule is “first in time, first in right”: the lien recorded earliest at the registry of deeds generally sits highest.
Statutory exceptions eat large parts of that rule. Municipal property tax liens jump to the front regardless of when they were recorded. Condominium super liens can leapfrog a first mortgage for up to six months of assessments. Federal tax liens beat other claimants only if the IRS recorded its Notice of Federal Tax Lien before those claimants perfected their own interests.7Internal Revenue Service. IRS Internal Revenue Manual 5.17.2 – Federal Tax Liens Environmental cleanup liens under Chapter 21E can also claim priority over previously recorded encumbrances on non-residential property.10General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 21E Section 13
What the Homestead Exemption Does and Doesn’t Reach
Massachusetts protects a substantial portion of home equity through its homestead law. Every owner-occupied primary residence receives an automatic homestead exemption protecting up to $125,000 in equity from most creditor claims. Filing a declaration of homestead at the registry of deeds increases that protection to $1,000,000.11Mass.gov. Massachusetts Law About Homestead
The homestead does not block liens from being recorded. It shields the owner’s equity from being seized through a forced sale, up to the exemption amount. And it doesn’t apply to every debt: mortgages you agreed to, federal and state tax liens, and certain other obligations can still reach the protected equity. Against general creditor claims and judgment liens, though, the homestead exemption is often the difference between keeping the home and losing it.
Clearing or Challenging a Lien
An owner facing a mechanics’ lien has a fast, if not cheap, option: post a surety bond. Under Chapter 254 Section 14, any interested person can dissolve a mechanics’ lien by recording a bond from an authorized surety in an amount equal to the lien claim. The lien dissolves immediately, and the claimant’s remedy shifts from the property to the bond. The claimant then has 90 days after the later of the sworn statement of account being filed or receipt of notice of the bond recording to sue on the bond.12General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 254 Section 14 The owner pays the surety premium, usually a few percent of the bond amount, and the sale or refinance can move forward.
Outside the bonding process, an owner can challenge a lien in court. Common grounds include missed statutory deadlines, defects in the notice of contract, and proof the underlying debt was already paid. If the lien was filed maliciously or without any factual basis, the owner may also have a slander of title claim, which requires showing a false statement was published (the wrongful lien recording), the filer knew or should have known it would discourage others from dealing with the owner, and the owner suffered actual financial harm as a direct result.
What Bankruptcy Does to Liens
When a property owner files for bankruptcy, the automatic stay immediately halts nearly all lien enforcement. Creditors cannot file new liens, perfect existing ones, or pursue foreclosure without first getting court permission. The stay prohibits any act to create, perfect, or enforce a lien against the debtor’s property or property of the bankruptcy estate.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 362 – Automatic Stay There is a notable exception for property tax assessments coming due after the filing, which can still be created and perfected despite the stay.
Bankruptcy also gives debtors a way to remove certain liens outright. Under Section 522(f), a debtor can avoid a judicial lien on their primary residence to the extent it impairs their homestead exemption. The test is mechanical: add the judicial lien, all other liens on the property, and the exemption amount the debtor is entitled to. If that total exceeds the property’s value, the judicial lien impairs the exemption and can be stripped. Debtors electing the federal exemption scheme use a residence exemption currently set at $31,575 (adjusted effective April 2025).14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 522 – Exemptions Debtors electing the state scheme use the Massachusetts homestead amounts instead.
A creditor who believes the stay is unfairly keeping them from protecting their collateral can ask the court for relief from the stay, which is typically granted where the debtor has no equity in the property and the property isn’t necessary for an effective reorganization.