What kinds of liens follow farmland, and which ones survive a sale?

Question

Turnrow Capital · Accepted Answer

Property tax liens, irrigation and drainage district assessments, IRS liens, judgment liens, mortgages, and mechanics liens can all attach to farmland. Priority is mostly first-recorded-first-paid, with a big exception: property tax and many district assessment liens are super-priority — they jump ahead of everything, including a first mortgage.

The lien landscape on ag land: county property taxes (attach annually, super-priority); irrigation, drainage, and weed district assessments (often the same super-priority status); recorded mortgages and deeds of trust; federal tax liens (attach to all the taxpayer's property once filed); judgment liens (attach when an abstract is recorded in the county); and mechanics or agricultural liens from unpaid contractors, well drillers, or input suppliers.

At a properly handled closing, the title company finds recorded liens in the commitment and pays them from proceeds — the buyer takes free of them. The dangerous ones are gaps: taxes not yet delinquent, a mechanics lien whose filing window (often 90–120 days after work) has not closed, and unrecorded federal liens in the window before filing. Ag-specific traps include statutory landlord liens and crop input liens under state UCC filings.

Buyer hygiene: get a current title commitment, require payoff and release of every monetary lien at closing, ask the county about pending assessments, and on recently improved property, collect lien waivers from contractors. If a lien is disputed rather than paid, that is a cloud on title — handle it before closing, not after.