Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

Re: property liens

Hello. In light of the foreclosure the creditor can now seek to garnish your wages, if he/she chooses to do so.

Re: property liens

Hello. In light of the foreclosure the creditor can now seek to garnish your wages, if he/she chooses to do so.

Re: property liens

There are two different things in play here and it'll be helpful to go over them. First of all there's a judgment, which is a personal debt. Judgments may be collected in different ways. Wages may be garnished, for example. Another way to potentially collect is to record a memorandum of the judgment (a summary of it) with the county. What this accomplishes is to make the judgment a potential lien against any existing property or property purchased afterwards (for a period of 7 years in the case of a memorandum). So if the person with the judgment against them has or acquires real estate, that judgment is now a lien, i.e., is "secured". The memorandum is called security because it's not just a personal debt anymore (although it's also that), it's a secured debt.

It's the same reason a mortgage is recorded when a person borrows money for a home loan (a note). The mortgage secures the note so that they're not lending money on just a signature.

So to answer your questions, the lien will attach to any real estate owned now or within 7 years in the county the memorandum was recorded in. Also, even if the lien was extinguished in the foreclosure case (and all liens were disposed of if the plaintiff did his job correctly), there's still a judgment that exists despite the fact that there's no lien. In other words, there's no security for the debt but there's still a debt.

Clear as mud? If you still have questions, contact my office.