You are sitting at a Savannah closing table, ready to sell or refinance your home after bankruptcy, when the closing attorney suddenly tells you there is a lien on your property that has to be paid first. The sale you counted on to move or pay other bills is now on hold. You thought the bankruptcy wiped out those old problems, so hearing about a hidden lien feels confusing and unfair.
This kind of surprise often shows up when there was a contractor dispute, judgment, or other property-related debt in the past that never quite went away. The lien may not have shown up on early title searches or even on your credit reports, so you had no reason to suspect it. Then a deeper search for the Savannah closing uncovers it, and suddenly everyone is looking at you for answers you do not have.
We see this pattern regularly in our bankruptcy practice in Savannah and the surrounding counties. For more than 42 years, our team at Barbara B. Braziel Attorney At Law has helped people through bankruptcy and what comes after, including home sales delayed by contractor liens and judgment liens that survived a prior case. In this article, we will explain why unrecorded or “hidden” liens sometimes live on after bankruptcy and what that means for homeowners who just want a clean title and a fresh start.
Dealing with an unrecorded lien in Savannah? Call (833) 522-1069 or contact us online to review your title issue and find out what options you have before your closing moves forward.
How A Hidden Lien Can Derail A Savannah Home Sale After Bankruptcy
From the homeowner’s point of view, a surviving lien usually shows up at the worst possible time. Imagine you filed Chapter 7 in Savannah a few years ago, completed the process, and received your discharge. You kept your house, stayed current on the mortgage, and now you are ready to sell. When the closing attorney in Chatham County runs a full title search, a lien from an old contractor bill or judgment suddenly appears.
The closing attorney typically explains that the lienholder has a legal claim against your property. That claim has to be cleared before the buyer’s lender will fund the loan or before a title company will issue title insurance. The options laid out to you may sound harsh: pay the lien in full, negotiate some sort of payoff, or risk losing the buyer. It is natural to feel like your bankruptcy did not work because this debt seems to be back on the table.
In reality, what is happening is not a failure of the bankruptcy, but a reflection of how liens work under Georgia law and under the bankruptcy code. Bankruptcy primarily deals with your personal obligation to pay a debt. A lien, by contrast, is a separate legal right attached to the property itself. If that lien right existed before you filed, and if certain conditions are met, it can survive the bankruptcy and still block a sale, even if the underlying personal debt was discharged.
At Barbara B. Braziel Attorney At Law, we routinely receive calls from Savannah homeowners and local title companies when these hidden liens surface in the final days before closing. Our role in that moment is to sort out exactly what kind of lien it is, when it arose, and how it interacted with your past bankruptcy. Once we know that, we can talk clearly about why it survived and what can be done about it now.
What An Unrecorded Lien Really Is Under Georgia Law
To understand why a lien might survive bankruptcy, we first have to be clear on what a lien is. A lien is a legal claim against property that secures payment of a debt. Common examples in Georgia include mortgages, mechanic’s or contractor liens for work done on your home, and judgment liens that grow out of lawsuits. When a lien is valid, the creditor can look to the property for payment, not just to you personally.
With some liens, like a traditional mortgage, the lien is recorded in the land records at the Chatham County courthouse shortly after you close on the loan. Anyone searching the records can see it. Other liens, especially mechanics’ or contractor liens, work differently. Under Georgia law, a contractor or supplier often gains lien rights once they perform work or provide materials that improve your property, even before they take the step of recording anything.
Those early lien rights can be thought of as “invisible” outside the relationship between you and the contractor. The contractor still has to follow Georgia’s rules to perfect the lien and record it properly. That usually means filing in the correct county office within specific deadlines. Until they do this, a quick title search may not show anything, even though the contractor already has the legal ability to turn that work into an enforceable lien.
When we review situations for Savannah homeowners, we often find that the work was done and disputes arose before the bankruptcy, but no recorded lien was on file at the time. That does not mean the contractor had no rights. It simply means those rights had not yet been turned into a visible record in the county books. Understanding the difference between “no record” and “no lien rights” is key to seeing why these problems can show up long after you thought everything was resolved.
How Bankruptcy Treats Debts Versus Liens On Your Home
Bankruptcy is powerful, but it does not treat every part of a creditor’s claim the same way. When you file a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 case in Savannah, you are primarily addressing your personal obligation to pay debts, known as in personam liability. The court can discharge that personal liability, so creditors cannot sue you or garnish wages for those discharged debts. Liens, however, represent in rem rights, which are rights against the property itself.
If a creditor has a valid lien on your home before you file bankruptcy, that creditor usually holds a secured claim. In bankruptcy terms, a secured claim is one that is backed by collateral, like your house or your car. Unsecured claims, on the other hand, have no collateral behind them, like most credit card debts or medical bills. The discharge focuses on your obligation, not necessarily on the existence of the lien that secures the debt.
In a typical Chapter 7 case, a properly recorded mortgage or other lien remains attached to the property after discharge. You may wipe out your personal liability, but if you want to keep the property, you still have to deal with the lien. In Chapter 13, liens can sometimes be stripped, modified, or paid through the repayment plan, but those results usually require very specific plan language and sometimes additional motions or orders from the court.
The key point is that bankruptcy does not automatically erase liens just because the underlying debt is listed on your schedules. Liens usually need to be addressed directly, through plan treatment or lien-avoidance tools, for their legal effect on the property to change. When that does not happen, and when lien rights already existed before filing, those rights often ride through the bankruptcy and reappear later when you or a buyer’s lender looks closely at the title.
Our team has handled thousands of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases in Savannah and surrounding counties. Over time, we have seen how confusion about the difference between wiping out a debt and dealing with a lien can lead to painful surprises years later. That experience shapes the way we explain these issues at the start of a case, and also how we untangle them when a lien surfaces after discharge.
Why An Unrecorded Lien Often Survives A Savannah Bankruptcy
Unrecorded liens are especially tricky because they often do not appear in the normal places we all look for debts and claims. When you filed for bankruptcy, you and your attorney probably reviewed credit reports, bills, and obvious legal papers. If a contractor had not yet recorded a lien in the Chatham County records, or if a judgment lien had not been picked up on your reports, no one saw it. The debt might have been listed, but the lien rights behind that debt might not have been visible.
Even if the creditor or contractor was listed on your schedules, the bankruptcy discharge only addressed your personal liability. If Georgia law gave that creditor lien rights based on work done or a judgment entered before you filed, those lien rights could still be sitting in the background. After your discharge, the creditor may choose to perfect or enforce those rights, especially if they learn your home now has equity or is being sold.
Timing often plays a central role. For example, suppose a Savannah roofer finished work on your home in March, you filed Chapter 7 in June, and the roofer recorded a lien in August. The underlying work and lien rights arose before you filed. The fact that the formal recording came after the filing does not necessarily erase those rights. Unless the lien was challenged or specifically addressed in the bankruptcy, it may still be enforceable when you try to sell.
We also see situations where a judgment was entered against a homeowner before bankruptcy, but the way that judgment attached to the property was not clear at the time. Years later, when a title company working on a Savannah closing digs through both court records and land records, the judgment-based lien comes into focus. From the homeowner’s perspective, this feels like a new problem. Legally, it is an old right that never got fully resolved in the original case.
Because we work regularly with Savannah contractors, judgment creditors, and local courts, we recognize patterns in how and when these liens are asserted. It is common for a creditor to sit quietly for years, then press its lien rights when a sale or refinance is on the horizon and there is finally money available from the property. That practice does not always feel fair, but understanding it helps us explain to clients why a lien survived and what leverage exists in dealing with it now.
Common Savannah Scenarios Where Liens Surface Years Later
One pattern we see involves home improvements. Picture a Savannah homeowner who hires a contractor to replace an aging roof. The work is completed, but there is a dispute about the final bill, and the contractor threatens a lien. The homeowner later files Chapter 7, lists the contractor as an unsecured creditor, and receives a discharge. No lien appears in the public record at that time. A few years later, during a sale, the title company finds that the contractor recorded a mechanic’s lien after the work, and is now insisting on payment from the sale proceeds.
Another frequent scenario involves judgments. A creditor sues over an old debt and obtains a judgment in a Georgia court before the bankruptcy case. The homeowner files Chapter 13, completes the plan, and believes the matter is behind them. Later, when trying to refinance a house in Chatham County, the lender’s title search uncovers a judgment lien tied to that old case. The homeowner is told the judgment lien must be paid or cleared before the new loan can close, even though the personal obligation to pay that debt was discharged years earlier.
We also hear from families dealing with inherited property in Savannah and nearby counties. A parent went through bankruptcy in the past, kept the house, and later passed it down to children by will or deed. When the children go to sell, a long-forgotten contractor lien or judgment lien surfaces in the title work. The heirs are blindsided. From their viewpoint, this is an unexpected burden attached to property they did not buy, and it complicates what they assumed would be a simple sale.
In each of these examples, the root cause is similar. A creditor’s lien rights arose before the bankruptcy and were never fully addressed, either because they were not visible at the time or because no one sought to challenge or modify them through the bankruptcy process. When a title company in Savannah pulls a full chain of title and court records for a closing, those old rights finally show up on a report that everyone can see.
Over the years, we have taken calls from closing attorneys and title agents in Savannah who discover these problems days or even hours before a scheduled signing. We understand the pressure both the homeowner and the professionals feel in those moments. That on-the-ground experience informs how we talk about options and timing with our clients when a lien appears out of nowhere.
What A Surviving Lien Means For Your Sale, Refinance, Or Inheritance
When a lien survives bankruptcy, it has very real consequences for what you can do with your property. In a traditional home sale, the buyer and the buyer’s lender expect to receive a clear title, which means no outstanding liens other than any new mortgage they are putting in place. If a contractor or judgment lien sits in the chain of title, the closing attorney will typically require that lien to be paid off or released as part of the closing.
This often means that money from your sale proceeds will have to go to the lienholder before you receive your share. Depending on the amount of the lien and the equity in your Savannah property, this can significantly reduce the cash you expected to walk away with. If the lien amount is large enough, the sale might not generate enough to pay off both the mortgage and the lien, which can lead to a cancelled contract or a need to renegotiate terms with the buyer.
A surviving lien also affects refinancing. Lenders generally want their new mortgage to be in a certain position against the property, usually first in line. If a contractor or judgment lien is already recorded, the new lender may require that lien to be paid, subordinated, or resolved before approving the loan. This can block your ability to tap equity or lower your interest rate, even if you have made every mortgage payment on time since your bankruptcy.
Inheritance and family transfers are not immune to these issues. When property in Savannah passes from one generation to the next, liens do not simply fall away because the owner’s name changed. A lien that survived a prior bankruptcy continues to rest against the property itself. Heirs may discover they have limited options for selling or borrowing against the house until that lien is addressed, which can be especially painful when they are already dealing with grief and other responsibilities.
Because we focus on protecting homes and important property whenever the law allows, we look carefully at how a surviving lien will affect your bottom line in any transaction. Understanding how sale proceeds would be distributed, what a new lender expects, and what options exist to negotiate or restructure a deal is a critical part of advising you on the best next step for your family.
Options For Dealing With An Unrecorded Or Surviving Lien After Bankruptcy
Discovering a lien after bankruptcy does not automatically mean you have no options. The right path depends heavily on the type of lien, when it arose, how it was recorded, and what happened in your original case. Our first goal is to help you understand the range of approaches that may exist, even if not all will be available in every situation.
Some homeowners are able to negotiate with the lienholder. For example, a contractor or judgment creditor may agree to accept less than the full amount in exchange for prompt payment from sale proceeds. Others might be open to a payment plan or partial release, depending on their leverage and their assessment of your situation. These negotiations usually go more smoothly when you understand the legal strength of the lien and when an attorney can frame the options clearly.
In some cases, it is worth examining whether the lien was properly perfected or recorded under Georgia law. If the contractor or creditor missed key deadlines or filed in the wrong way, the enforceability of the lien may be weaker than it appears on the surface. Reviewing the timeline of work, judgments, recording, and the bankruptcy filing date is an important part of that analysis, and it can affect both negotiations and potential legal challenges.
There are also limited situations where reopening a bankruptcy or filing additional motions might be appropriate. This depends on many factors, including the chapter you filed, how long ago the case closed, and whether there were legal tools at the time that were not used. Because these steps can be complex and sometimes costly, they require a careful cost-benefit discussion, not a quick yes or no.
Before meeting with us about a surviving lien, it helps to gather certain documents so we can give you informed guidance. These typically include your prior bankruptcy petition and schedules, your discharge order, any contracts or invoices with contractors, judgment papers, and the title commitment or closing documents that first revealed the lien. At Barbara B. Braziel Attorney At Law, we use those materials to walk you through what the lien means and which of the possible approaches are realistic in your case.
How Our Savannah Bankruptcy Team Reviews Lien Problems With You
When someone contacts our office about a surprise lien after bankruptcy, we start by listening. We know from decades of working with Savannah families that this kind of problem can feel like a personal failure, even though it usually stems from complex rules about liens and timing. Attorney Braziel’s own experience raising children as a single parent and facing financial stress herself shapes the way we talk about these issues. Our goal is to offer clarity and respect, not judgment.
In a typical first meeting, whether in one of our Savannah-area offices or through a virtual consultation, we review your prior bankruptcy paperwork and the documents that show the lien. We look at when the debt arose, when any work was performed, when judgments were entered, when the bankruptcy was filed, and when the lien was recorded. That timeline often tells us a great deal about why the lien survived and what leverage may exist now.
We then explain, in plain terms, the options that might apply to your situation. Sometimes that involves negotiating with the lienholder before closing. In other cases, we may talk about whether additional legal action or further bankruptcy-related steps are worth exploring. We emphasize transparency about risks and potential costs, so you can decide whether to move forward with a sale, delay it, or take other measures with a clear understanding of the tradeoffs.
Our firm includes several seasoned attorneys who focus their work on bankruptcy and debt relief. We are active in national consumer bankruptcy groups and Chapter 13 trustee associations, which helps us stay current on lien strategies and court practices beyond Savannah. Coupled with more than 5,000 cases handled locally, that blend of local insight and broader perspective allows us to offer informed guidance when an unrecorded lien suddenly complicates your plans.
We also understand that money is tight for many people who have already gone through bankruptcy. That is why we offer free initial consultations and maintain accessible offices, along with virtual meeting options. You can sit down with us, lay out your documents and concerns, and talk through the lien problem without worrying about upfront fees just to understand your position.
Talk To A Savannah Bankruptcy Lawyer About A Surviving Lien On Your Home
A hidden or unrecorded lien that survives bankruptcy does not mean your fresh start is gone. It means that liens follow their own set of rules, and those rules were never fully addressed in your original case. Once you understand how the lien arose, why it survived, and what it really means for your sale or refinance, you can make informed decisions about the best path forward for you and your family.
If a title company, lender, or closing attorney in Savannah has just told you about a lien you did not expect, you do not have to sort it out alone. The team at Barbara B. Braziel Attorney At Law can review your prior bankruptcy, your title documents, and your goals, then walk you through realistic options in a clear and respectful way.
Call today at (833) 522-1069 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation and get a clearer picture of what comes next.