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I have a lien filed but the owner's information is not correct.

According to the tax records, my information was correct. I had the recorded owners served via certified mail. According to the former owners, after being served, they do not own the property any longer. Is my lien still valid, even with the incorrect information? Do I need to amend my lien to include the new owners, even though they are not on the tax rolls as being the owners?

1 reply

Nov 20, 2018

That's a good question, and unfortunately, there might not be a particularly black and white answer. Regarding the validity of the filed lien - it's hard to predict whether a lien claim might be deemed valid and invalid, and unless the lien is challenged or enforced, the issue may not make it to a courtroom. But, under the Mississippi mechanics lien statute, notice of the lien filing must be given to the owner of the property liened within 2 business days of filing the lien. When notice has gone to a prior owner rather than the current owner, it's entirely possible that the filed lien could be considered invalid. Plus, with property ownership interests being strong under most state laws, typically it's very important to include correct ownership information when filing a lien. Regarding attempting to correct the filing, it's worth noting that if the deadline to file a mechanics lien claim has not passed, a claimant can potentially attempt to file and serve a corrected version of the lien. If the corrected lien is then recorded and served, the original flawed lien claim might be able to be released - leaving only the validly filed lien. Another potential option might to to try and amend the filed mechanics lien. Mississippi specifically allows for the amendment of mechanics lien claims - but that portion of the Mississippi lien statute (§ 85-7-405(e)) only accounts for amending the amount of a lien claim - not the parties involved. If the deadline has not yet passed to file the original lien claim, filing a document purporting to amend the already-filed lien claim might be possible with little issue. Of course, it's hard to predict the effectiveness of such a filing considering the Mississippi lien statute doesn't specifically allow for amending the ownership information on lien claims. Finally, if the deadline to file the original lien claim has passed, it might be tougher for a claimant to attempt to correct a flawed lien filing - but attempting to amend a filed lien claim is always an option, and it could potentially be effective. Lastly, it's worth noting that even where the ownership information was incorrect as a result of relying on public record (such as the tax records), ultimately, the most important thing may be that the ownership information is correct, bottomline. Thus, even where there may be good reason for an error, that error could still result in an invalid lien.

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