Mississippi HOA Lien Priority and Recording Rules

Mississippi HOA Lien Priority and Recording Rules

Mississippi has no state statute that establishes where an HOA assessment lien sits in priority relative to a first mortgage or other liens. Your homeowner or condominium association's lien rights flow from your governing documents and Mississippi's common law priority principles, which generally follow the rule that first in time is first in right. This means the date you record your lien determines where it stands in the payment queue if the property goes to foreclosure.

How Lien Priority Works Without a State Statute

When Mississippi law does not prescribe a specific priority order for HOA liens, courts apply the common law rule that a lien recorded earlier takes priority over a lien recorded later. If a homeowner obtains a mortgage and the lender records it on January 15, and your association records an assessment lien on March 10, the mortgage sits in first position and your lien sits in second position. If the property forecloses and the sale proceeds total 80,000 dollars, the first mortgage holder is paid in full before your association receives anything.

Your declaration of covenants may state that assessment liens have priority over all other liens, but that language is only enforceable to the extent Mississippi law allows. A private covenant cannot override a first mortgage lender's rights if the lender recorded before your lien arose. However, your declaration can and should require that owners acknowledge the lien in writing when they purchase the property, which strengthens your ability to collect.

The Mississippi Secretary of State's office maintains the statewide Uniform Commercial Code filing system, but real property liens are recorded at the county chancery clerk's office in the county where the property is located. You must record your assessment lien in the correct county to perfect it. A lien that is not recorded has no priority and cannot survive a foreclosure.

Recording Fees and Procedure

Recording fees in Mississippi vary by county. In Hinds County, the chancery clerk charges 12 dollars for the first page of a document and 2 dollars for each additional page as of 2025. In DeSoto County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state due to its proximity to Memphis, the fee structure is similar but the clerk may charge additional fees for indexing if your lien references multiple parcels. You should call the chancery clerk in the county where your property is located to confirm the current fee schedule before you file.

To record an assessment lien in Mississippi, you must prepare a written notice of lien that includes the property owner's name, the property's legal description, the amount of the unpaid assessments, the date the assessments became due, and a statement that your association claims a lien under the authority of your governing documents. You must sign the notice and have your signature notarized. You then deliver the original document to the chancery clerk along with the recording fee. The clerk will stamp the document with the date and time of recording and return a recorded copy to you.

The date and time of recording determine your lien's priority. If you record at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday and another creditor records a judgment lien against the same property at 2:00 p.m. that same day, your lien has priority. This makes speed critical when you are pursuing collection.

What Happens in Foreclosure

If a first mortgage lender forecloses on a property in your association, your lien is paid only if sale proceeds exceed the amount owed to the lender. Mississippi is a non judicial foreclosure state for deeds of trust, which means a lender can foreclose without going to court if the deed of trust includes a power of sale clause. The foreclosure sale is conducted by a trustee, and the proceeds are distributed according to lien priority. If your lien sits in second position and the sale proceeds total 120,000 dollars, and the first mortgage balance is 115,000 dollars, your association receives a maximum of 5,000 dollars even if you are owed 12,000 dollars in unpaid assessments.

Your association can protect itself by recording assessment liens promptly when accounts become delinquent. Many Mississippi associations wait until an owner is 90 days past due before filing a lien, but you can file sooner if your governing documents allow it. The earlier you record, the better your position if a second mortgage or judgment lien is filed later.

Super Lien States and Mississippi

Some states grant HOA assessment liens a super lien status that allows the association to collect a limited amount of assessments ahead of a first mortgage. These states include Nevada, which allows six months of assessments to take priority, and Florida, which allows up to 12 months or one percent of the original mortgage amount, whichever is less. Mississippi does not have a super lien statute. Your assessment lien in Mississippi has the priority it earns by recording date, and no statutory provision moves it ahead of a previously recorded mortgage.

This means your association must be aggressive about recording liens and pursuing collection before a property goes into foreclosure. Once a lender initiates foreclosure, your opportunity to collect shrinks. You should consult your attorney for your specific situation to determine whether foreclosing your own lien or negotiating a payment plan is the better strategy.

The Gulfport Coastal Example

A concrete example from coastal Mississippi illustrates the risk. The Bayou View Homeowners Association in Gulfport filed an assessment lien in 2023 against a property with 8,400 dollars in unpaid dues. The association recorded the lien in Harrison County on June 12, 2023. The homeowner had taken out a first mortgage in 2019 and a second mortgage in 2022, both of which were recorded before the HOA lien. When the first mortgage lender foreclosed in 2024, the property sold for 142,000 dollars. The first mortgage balance was 135,000 dollars and the second mortgage balance was 18,000 dollars. The association received 7,000 dollars from the sale and wrote off the remaining 1,400 dollars as uncollectible. If the association had recorded its lien in 2021 when the account first became delinquent, it would have sat ahead of the second mortgage and recovered the full amount.

What You Should Do Now

Review your association's governing documents to confirm that they grant a lien for unpaid assessments and specify when the lien attaches. Check your current collection policy to see how long you wait before recording a lien. If you wait more than 60 days after an account becomes delinquent, consider shortening that window. Create a checklist for lien recording that includes obtaining the legal description from county records, preparing the notice of lien, having it notarized, and delivering it to the chancery clerk with the correct fee.

Maintain a spreadsheet that tracks every delinquent account, the amount owed, the date the lien was recorded, and the county where it was filed. This gives you a clear picture of your priority position if a property enters foreclosure. Update the spreadsheet monthly and share it with your board during financial reviews.

Manorway's AI assisted platform helps you track delinquent accounts, generate lien notices, and maintain a record of recording dates and fees. When your board uses a system that alerts you to delinquency thresholds and automates lien preparation, you reduce the time between delinquency and recording, which improves your priority position and increases your likelihood of full recovery.